Design and characterization of prednisolone nanoparticles for potential therapeutic applications

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutics, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq.

2 Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, University of Alkafeel, Iraq Correspondence Author Walaa A. Saihood

Abstract

Prednisolone is a corticosteroid medicine used to treat a variety of conditions, including allergies, inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and certain types of cancer. This drug has poor solubility and high permeability.
The purpose of this study was to improve the solubility and rate of dissolution of prednisolone by fabricating nanoparticles using various stabilizers through the solvent-antisolvent precipitation technique.
A total of eighteen different formulas were developed and tested for the size of particle , polydispersity index (PDI), entrapment efficiency (EE), and in-vitro dissolution.
The best formulas were further evaluated after lyophilization and converted to nanoparticle powder by assessing their solubility. Furthermore the best formulation also were characterized by Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transforms Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR).
The results of the study revealed that the particle size of the drug particles in all the formulations was nanosized, ranging from 50.8 nm to 364.7 nm. The dissolution rate of the chosen lyophilized formulas was superior to that of the free drug in phosphate buffer at pH 7.4.
The FT-IR spectroscopy results indicated that the combination of prednisolone with different stabilizers did not have an effect on the peak positions or trends. This research determined that prednisolone nanoparticles could be successfully created by the application of precipitation technique, with the use of various stabilizers.

Keywords