Design Development of a Novel Transdermal Drug Delivery System as Wound Dressing

Abstract

The present work is based on the transdermal drug delivery of herbal drugs. newline Two plants Ficus racemosa and Calotropis gigantea were selected for wound healing activity. newline From each plant, 3 fractions, totally 6 fractions were isolated successfully. From the pharmacological studies, it was proved that both plants possess wound healing activity but fractions FRfr3 and CGfr3 of Ficus racemosa and Calotropis gigantea respectively were found to possess prominent and predominant wound healing activities. newline Hence, transdermal drug delivery systems for fractions of Ficus racemosa (FRfr3), Calotropis gigantea (CGfr3) and its combination (FRfr3 +CGfr3) were formulated and evaluated. The formulations successfully released active part in a controlled fashion up to 24h. newline The bioavailability of the herbal drugs was enhanced by transdermal drug delivery approach. The three formulations exhibited the ideal characters for transdermal drug delivery systems including in vitro and in vivo studies. newline In vitro cytotoxicity studies confirmed the absence of cytotoxicity for the transdermal patches. newline The transdermal patches CGFR-3, FRFR-3 and FRFR-3+CGFR-3 showed notable wound healing activity in both excision and incision wound models when applied topically. Among three test patches FRFR-3+CGFR-3 exhibited effective wound healing activity, followed by FRFR-3 and CGFR-3 in both Excision and Incision wound models. This maximal effect of FRFR-3+CGFR-3 might due to the synergistic action of CGFR-3 and FRFR-3. newline Stability studies conducted for 90 days at 40ºC ± 2ºC / 75% ± 5% RH confirmed that all the transdermal patches were stable. newline Hence it can be concluded that the newly developed formulation-transdermal drug delivery systems with herbal drugs (Ficus racemosa and Calotropis gigantea) is considered to be potential and effective in the management of wound healing and its related disease conditions. newline