5‑Fluorouracil loaded chitosan/polyacrylic acid/Fe3O4 magnetic nanocomposite hydrogel as a potential anticancer drug delivery system.

In most cancer treatments, chemotherapy is currently necessary; hence, more attention was devoted to developing new methods for designing drug delivery systems (DDS) with controlled drug release. For this aim, anticancer 5‑fluorouracil (5-FU) drug was loaded into chitosan/polyacrylic acid/Fe3O4 magnetic nanocomposite hydrogel (CS/PAA/Fe3O4) through immersing in the drug solution. The prepared CS/PAA/Fe3O4 was characterized using FT-IR, XRD, VSM, TGA and SEM analysis. For demonstrating the efficiency of the prepared novel nanocomposite carrier as a controlled DDS, in-vitro the drug delivery tests were carried out in mimicking the colon and rectal conditions. The drug release tests showed that the CS/PAA/Fe3O4 enhanced the stability of drug dosing for a long time with controlled releases in the colon and rectal conditions. According to the obtained results, the prepared nanocomposite hydrogel could potentially to be used in DDS as a colon and rectal administration of 5-FU.