Bacterial Cellulose-Based Drug Delivery System for Dual Mode Drug Release

As-produced bacterial cellulose (BC) hydrogel has been dried by two methods [oven drying (OD) and freeze drying (FD)] to obtain two different release profiles of the drug diclofenac sodium (DCF). Freeze dried BC exhibits a immediate first order release, while the oven dried BC shows a sustained non-Fickian supercase II transport/release of drug. The difference in the release profiles is due to the difference in the fiber and matrix flexibility, pore size distribution and density. More importantly, this work presents a facile way to obtain a combination of immediate as well as sustained release by a simple assembly of OD and FD BC. It has been shown that the assembled (stacked) sample can offer a burst release for 1 h for immediate pain relief followed by a sustained release for long term pain management. This work can be extended to provide a combinational release of different drugs, where the release profiles need to be different as per their need and activity.