Divya Maheta, Dhaval Patel and Ravi Manek
Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Pharma Care Health Sys
The present research work aimed at development as well as in-vitro and in-vivo assessment of Herbal Topical Gel Formulation (HTGF) for local delivery of antifungal vidang extract. Embelin is the major constituent of the vidang which is used to prevent fungal skin infections and is not absorbed at all in entire upper portions of GI tract and remain as such in colon. Hence, vidang was chosen as a drug to formulate HTGF. Because of the prolonged contact of drug with infected part and poor solubility of embelin, suitable semi-solid bases and appropriate co-solvent system are required to develop stable and safe HTGF. Each formulation was characterized in terms of viscosity, spreadability, pH measurements, drug content, and in vitro diffusion study. A 32 full factorial design was employed to investigate the influence of formulation variables (effect of amount of Carbopol 934 and amount of propylene glycol (PG)) on the viscosity, time required for 50% release of drug (T50%) and drug release at 1 hr (DR1). On the basis of percentage similarity with maximum desirability, formulation containing 1.6% carbopol 934 with 12% PG was selected as an optimized formulation. The optimized formulation was evaluated for ex vivo permeation study, in vitro antifungal study and its effect on Candida albicans on skin infection in guinea pigs. Optimized formulation significantly (p<0.005) inhibited Candida albicans, Trychophyton rubrum and Microsporum canis in vitro as well as significantly (p<0.005) eradicated Candida albicans from infected skin in guinea pigs. The results revealed that optimized formulation exhibited superior physical characteristics and promising performance for local topical delivery.
