Microemulsion based topical hydrogel of sertaconazole: formulation, characterization and evaluation.

A microemulsion (ME) based hydrogel had studied as a topical delivery of sertaconazole (STZL) for effective eradication of cutaneous fungal infection. The existence of microemulsion region was investigated in pseudo-ternary phase diagrams and various ME formulations were prepared using oleic acid, Tween 80, propylene glycol and water. Hydrogel of STZL microemulsions (HSM) were prepared in Carbopol 940 (0.75%, w/w) and characterized. The prepared HSM and commercial cream of STZL were evaluated in vitro and ex vivo. The permeation rate of STZL from optimized formulation (HSM-4), composed with oleic acid (8.75%, w/w), tween 80 (33.35%, w/w), propylene glycol (33.35%, w/w) and water (24.55%, w/w) was observed higher in compare with other HSMs and commercial cream. HSM-4 was stable, had 3 times higher drug retention capacity in skin than commercial cream and did not caused any erythema or edema based on skin sensitivity study on rabbit. The average zone of inhibition of HSM-4 (23.54±0.72mm) was higher in compare with commercial cream (16.53±0.63mm) against Candida albicans which may be due to permeation enhancing effect of ME and skin retention effect of HSM. It is promising that the concentration of STZL used to treat cutaneous fungal infection could be decreased due to the high permeation and anti-fungal effect of STZL in HSM-4.