Ibuprofen controlled release from E-beam treated polycaprolactone electrospun scaffolds

Abstract

Synthetic biodegradable polymers are considered to be a highly suitable materials for the targeted drug delivery devices creating. Especially promising is the use of the electrospinning technique, which makes it possible to obtain materials with a high surface-to-volume ratio that provides active diffusion of the drug into the body tissues. In order to control the rate of polymer degradation and drug release from polymer scaffolds surface modification techniques are widely used. This study was focused on the investigation of ibuprofen-loaded poly (ϵ-caprolactone) electrospun fibrous scaffolds and modification of theirs surface. Scaffolds with two ibuprofen concentrations were obtained: 5 wt./wt. % and 10 wt./wt.%. The modification was conducted by the pulsed electron beam irradiation. The sustained release of the model drug over a period of one day from both non-treated and treated samples was demonstrated. It was shown, that treatment leads to an increase in drug release rate and does not change surface morphology of scaffolds and fibers diameter distribution.