Formulation Development and Evaluation of Itraconazole Loaded Invasomes Hydrogel

Topical drug administration is a localized drug delivery system anywhere in the body through ophthalmic, rectal, vaginal and skin as topical routes. Skin is one of the most readily accessible organs on human body for topical administration and is main route of topical drug delivery system. There are various skin infections caused by fungus. An antifungal medication is a pharmaceutical fungicide used to treat mycoses such as athlete’s foot ringworm, candidiasis. Antifungal works by exploiting differences between mammalian and fungal cells to kill the fungal organism without dangerous effect on host. Itraconazole (ITZ) is commonly used in the treatment of fungal infections. It has low bioavailability (55%) because of low aqueous solubility and first pass effect. Hence we attempted to develop Itraconazole-loaded invasomes hydrogel. ITZ-loaded invasomes were prepared by conventional thin layer evaporation technique using Phospholipon 90H, terpene (Limonene) and ethanol. The optimized ITZ-loaded invasomes was incorporated into carbopol 934p (0.5 to 2%) solution to get a hydrogel for improving convenience in superficial application. FT-IR studies revealed no interaction between the drug and excipients. The formulated hydrogel formulation was evaluated with parameter pH, viscosity, gel strength, drug content, spread ability, in-vitro release test, wash ability, extrudability study and stability studies. The formulation OIGF4 showed a drug content of 99.12% and drug release of 99.78% in 72 hrs, which contains carbopol 934p concentration 2%w/w. The present work also focuses on making the formulation more pharmaceutically acceptable.