Gentamicin sulphate release from a modified commercial acrylic surgical radiopaque bone cement. I. Influence of the gentamicin concentration on the release process mechanism.

The purpose of the present work was the study of the gentamicin sulphate (GS) release from a commercial acrylic bone cement CMW-1 with the aims of establishing the influence of the slabs preparation as well as the release mechanism and kinetics. The effect of the amount of GS on the release kinetic parameters has been also investigated. In vitro release studies were performed in a buffered saline solution at pH 7.4 and 37 degrees C. The GS concentration was determined using an indirect spectrophotometric method with an o-phthaldialdehyde as a derivatizing reagent. A commercial and three modified samples were tested. The free and fractured surfaces of the GS cement slabs before and after the release studies were observed by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). For low GS concentration loading the release was very incomplete because most of the GS beads were encapsulated by the hydrophobic PMMA matrix. A higher amount of antibiotic was released from cement that has a higher amount incorporated. A model and therefore a mechanism of release based on this model have been proposed. It has allowed us to explain the changes in dissolution kinetics of an acrylic matrix type controlled release system up to 12% GS loading. The cumulative amount of GS released M(t)/M(i), was fitted as a function of time. For lower amounts of GS, the regression analysis (R(2)>0.99) revealed that the release is most adequately represented by M(t)/M(i)=b+kt(n), where b represents a burst effect. The goodness of fit decreases as the amount of GS increases. The influence of some other type of release mechanism for higher amounts of GS must be taken into account and a second model for the release, M(t)/M(i)=b+k x [1-exp(-kt)], is proposed.