Formulation Development and Evaluation of Rifampicin Niosomes for Anti Tubercular treatment with Isoniazid

Abstract

From the preliminary work, it was observed that, span 60 niosomes was better than that of span 20, span 40 and span 80 niosomes. It was also evident that better entrapment efficiency of above 50% was achieved in this project. In vitro release of the niosomes with various surfactants was studied. The niosomes prepared with span 60 gave prolonged release and more amount of drug was released than with other surfactants. In vivo characteristics of sterilized rifampicin niosomes prepared with span 60 was administered intraperitoneally along with isoniazid oral dose to mice. Isoniazid with a minimum dose of 1.56 mg/kg for 26 days orally along with minimum 50 mg dose of rifampicin niosomes on 0 and 7 days administered intraperitoneally produced excellent result in histopathological studies in liver, lungs and spleen. In terms of storage stability, span 60 niosomes when stored at 45°C 75% RH, exhibited a drug leak of less than 10 % even after 6 months of storage. newlineCONCLUSION: newlineA therapeutic regimen with the rifampicin niosomes in combination with oral regimens of isoniazid was able to safely eliminate the lesions from lungs, liver and spleen. In most cases, combination therapy reduced or eliminated the appearances of lesion in the lungs, spleen and liver to non detectable levels, something not achieved with the oral regimen of isoniazid alone. The results were achieved by using a much reduced dosing schedule for rifampicin. Instead of dosing the mice daily 26 days, as would be the case with an oral dose, administration of dose to the mice only twice during that period and achieve significant improvement of the isoniazid oral therapy. These findings are encouraging and demonstrative that niosome technology can be safely used in combination with another antimicrobial agent. With the addition of the results presented in this report, it seems apparent that niosome technology can offer an alternative therapy for treatment of tuberculosis. newline