Abstract

FORMULATION, DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF TOPICAL GEL CONTAINING A NIMESULIDE

Ayushi Sharma*, Shikhar Rathore and Babita Gurjar

Abstract

These are the most common types of joint disorders. It is the leading cause of joint sickness and joint disability worldwide. Mainly this disease affects middle age people to elder age people. nimesulide (NSAID) is used here for the application of a drug to the skin to directly treat the inflammation and pain condition. Nimesulide is orally and topically administered drug. Oral marketed formulation of this drug is available in the form of conventional tablets as well as dispersible tablets and topical formulation of this drug is cream, gel, and ointment. Topical delivery of drugs is used for the application on the skin to directly treat the inflammatory disorders and disease. Advances in modern technologies are resulting in a larger number of drugs being delivered transdermally including conventional hydrophobic small molecule drugs, hydrophilic drugs and macromolecules. Transdermal systems are a desirable form of drug delivery because of the obvious advantages over other routes of delivery. Topical dosage form could be expected to be effective tool for avoiding the oral side effect and also targeting the drug to inflamed and infected skin. Current challenges are the poor water solubility of drugs which affect the development of dosage form. The above research finding showed that transdermal permeation of a poorly water-soluble drug can be enhanced using various solubilizers from the category of hydrotropes, cosolvents (propylene glycol, PEG 400) and water soluble solids (PEG 4000, PEG 6000). Aquoues topical gels can be formulated using sodium benzoate, sodium caprylate, niacinamide, PEG 4000, PEG 6000, propylene glycol and PEG 400 as solubilizers (all belonging to GRAS status) and HPMC as gelling agent with good clarity, spreadability, extrudability and stability.

Keywords: Nimesulide, Topical delivery system, gel, Inflammatory drug delivery.