Preparation and In Vitro Evaluation of a Stomach Specific Drug Delivery System based on Superporous Hydrogel Composite

This study discusses efforts made to design drug-delivery system based on superporous hydrogel composite for sustained delivery of ranitidine hydrochloride. The characterization studies involve measurement of apparent density, porosity, swelling studies, mechanical strength studies, and scanning electron microscopy. Scanning electron microscopic images clearly showed the formation of interconnected pores, capillary channels, and the cross-linked sodium carboxymethylcellulose molecules around the peripheries of pores. The prepared system floated and delivered the ranitidine hydrochloride for about 17 h. The release profile of ranitidine hydrochloride was studies by changing the retardant polymer in the system. To ascertain the drug release kinetics, the dissolution profiles were fitted to different mathematical models that include zero-order, first-order, Higuchi, Hixson-Crowell, Korsmeyer-Peppas, Weibull, and Hopfenberg models. The in vitro dissolution from system was explained by Korsmeyer-Peppas model. The diffusion exponent values in Korsmeyer-Peppas model range between 0.48±0.01 and 0.70±0.01, which appears to indicate an anomalous non-Fickian transport. It is concluded that the proposed mechanically stable floating drug-delivery system based on superporous hydrogel composite containing sodium carboxymethylcellulose as a composite material is promising for stomach specific delivery of ranitidine hydrochloride.