Fabrication and evaluation of a medicated hydrogel film with embelin from Embelia ribes for wound healing activity

Abstract

Background: There has been huge interest among the researchers to incorporate a medicinally active compounds in hydrogel sheets for effective treatment of wound healing. This research work involves development and evaluation of medicated hydrogel sheet incorporated with embelin which has both antimicrobial and wound healing activity. Embelin was isolated from the fruits of Embelia ribes and characterized by various physical and analytical methods like melting point, UV/VIS spectroscopy, and HPTLC. The hydrogel sheets containing polyvinyl alcohol and polyethylene glycol was prepared by freeze-thaw technique, where isolated embelin was successfully incorporated within the sheet. The prepared hydrogel sheets were further characterized by in vitro drug release study, swelling capacities, gel fraction, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), mechanical strength, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) study. Finally, the optimized hydrogel with embelin was evaluated for its wound healing efficacy in vivo using excision wound model on Sprague–Dawley rats. Results: The optimized hydrogel sheet had a composition of 5% PEG 400 and 10% PVA. It had acceptable in physico-chemical properties with respect to swelling capacities, gel fraction, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), and mechanical strength The release of the drug from hydrogel followed zero order kinetics with more than 80% drug release within 12 h. The in vivo studies on the Sprague–Dawley showed faster healing process with embelin loaded hydrogels as compared to the control and market formulation. Conclusions: Sheet hydrogel with 0.2% embelin was found to have huge potential for moist wound healing activity.