Formulation and evaluation of albendazole nanoparticle

Abstract

Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative novel drug delivery formulations of albendazole to improve its intestinal absorption and also to reduce its side effects during regular therapy. The Albendazole nanoparticles were prepared by hot homogenization method under high magnetic stirring using stearic acid as lipid and poloxamer 188 was used as surfactant. Initial pre-formulation studies using FTIR spectroscopy reveals that there are no interactions between Albendazole and other excipients and hence they can be used for the preparation of nanoparticles. The entrapment efficiencies varied from a minimum of 43.56 ± 0.95 % to a maximum of 85.1 ±0.58% and it can be concluded that higher amount of lipid is necessary for obtaining a good entrapment efficiency. The drug content of albendazole nanoparticles for all formulation ranges from 65.8% to 98.1%. A spherical shape was observed for the particles and the particles had a smooth morphology when examined under SEM. In vitro release studies of the formulations carried out in pH 7.4 PBS showed that the total amount of drug is released for 9hrs with sustained effect. That the formulations showed a drastic increase in size when stored at room temperature where the size of particles increased from an initial to 343.7 ±7.9 nm at the end of 1 month to 898.1 ± 5.8 nm at the end of 2 months. Entrapment efficiency of the formulation was determined at each interval to ensure that the drug molecules didn’t undergo any degradation during storage. Keywords: Albendazole, Nanoparticles, Particle size, Entrapment efficiency.