Preparation of theophylline hydrogels of atactic poly(vinyl alcohol)/NaCl/H2O system for drug delivery system.

Theophylline (TH) was loaded in an a-PVA/NaCl/H2O hydrogels system by one cycle gelation only at -20 degrees C. However, it developed some unwanted crystal-like structure surrounding the hydrogels while kept at room temperature. The physical, chemical and thermal analyses of this crystal-like structure indicated TH embedded with thin hydrogels of a-PVA/NaCl. Later during dissolving of feed-mixture at least 3 h heat treatment with proper mixing at high temperature contributed hydrogels of almost no crystal-like structure. 3% of TH was successfully loaded by this way. This type of hydrogels showed Fickian type drug release (Higuchi Model) and it showed a more sustained effect than that of traditional cyclic FT. Comparatively lower release rate, diffusion coefficient and kinetic constant values of this system prevail over other systems studied here. A DSC thermogram revealed that apparently homogeneous microgel junctions might play the key role behind the above properties. Moreover the a-PVA/TH/NaCl/H2O system depresses the freezing point at -30 degrees C instead of above this temperature. The hydrogels of this system were also prepared by freezing at -30 degrees C for 16 h as one cycle. Three cycles were done in cyclic FT (freezing at -30 degrees C for 16 h and thawing at room temperature for 8 h). Drug release was studied for a total of 750 min. Up to the asymptotic value, 10.5 h TH release from the hydrogel matrices of the a-PVA/NaCl/H2O system (gelation at -20 degrees C) and 6.5 h from those of a-PVA/NaCl/H2O (freezing at -30 degrees C) and a-PVA/H2O systems (cyclic FT) were found.