Oil-in-Water Emulsion-Solvent Evaporation Fabrication of Polycaprolactone Containing Piroxicam for Drug Release

Abstract

The microparticles containing piroxicam were produced by the oil-in-water emulsion-solvent evaporation technique, and characterized by microscopy, loading efficiency, size distribution and polydispersity index, in vitro drug release and release kinetics. A total of 20 formulations were prepared and characterized. Microparticles presented micrometric size of 1.026ìm to 3.541ìm, distribution homogeneous with PDI below 0.35 with spherical and regular shape. The piroxicam loading efficiency varied from 47.9 to 91.0% (w/w). In the release study, between 10.66 to 36.36% of piroxicam was released to the dissolution medium after 6 hours. The most appropriate formulation was F3 containing 10mg of the drug because of the high encapsulation efficiency, high encapsulated drug content and sustained release. The results demonstrated that it is possible to obtain microparticles with good morphological and release characteristics using the method oil-in-water emulsion-solvent evaporation.