Polysaccharide hydrogels for controlled release of acyclovir: development, characterization and in vitro evaluation studies

This work presented the development of new cross-linked xanthan gum based biodegradable polymeric system, characterization of their properties and investigation in its potential role for controlled delivery of antiviral drug acyclovir (ACV). Xanthan gum hydrogel formulations (FXG1–FXG9) were developed with different ratio of xanthan gum (XG), acrylic acid (AA), hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) and methylenebis-acrylamide (MBA). The structures of the hydrogels were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal analysis, powder X-ray diffraction analysis (PXRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The swelling characteristics and drug release profile of hydrogels were investigated by varying formulation reactants concentration, cross-linking density, pH of the medium and ionic strength. At pH 7.4, the maximum drug release profile observed in formulation FXG3 was 88.51%, while this value approached to 28.07% at pH 1.2 in simulated gastrointestinal fluid period of 24 h study. The results implicated that the developed hydrogels are potential candidate as drug carrier in controlled release formulations.