Title : Intelligent delivery of 5-fluorouracil using smart polymers
Abstract:
Colonic drug delivery systems have been utilized to treat a wide range of bowel illnesses, including colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis, Crohn's disease, and IBS. These systems can improve therapeutic efficacy by limiting undesired absorption in other parts of the gastrointestinal system, ensuring that the entire drug dose is delivered to the location of interest in the colon. The goal of this study was to develop a new one-pot, easily scalable formulation capable of retaining 5-fluorouracil and delaying its release in order to achieve site-specific pharmaceutical administration for the potential treatment of colorectal cancer. This polymer has the potential to hold a drug and delay its release, allowing for site-specific drug delivery to the colon. The synthetic process may also be easily scaled up for continuous manufacturing. Six polymer-based formulations were successfully produced utilizing a thermal bulk polymerization process and loaded with 5-fluorouracil, a chemotherapeutic drug used in the treatment of colorectal cancer. To assess the behaviour of the created system, in vitro swelling and release studies were performed in phosphate-buffered saline. Increasing crosslinking density considerably reduced the swelling profile of the generated formulations. After 5 hours of the release testing, all formulations had less than 28% cumulative drug release. The highest cumulative medication release after 24 hours was approximately 70%. The created drug delivery system displayed the ability to postpone the release of 5-fluorouracil under upper gastrointestinal tract-like settings while allowing its regulated release later, making it promising for the potential delivery of 5-fluorouracil to the colon.
