Floating Microsphere-Based Gastroretentive Drug Delivery Of Fluconazole For Localized Gastric Infection

Abstract

Fluconazole is a potent antifungal drug that effectively treats fungal infections, including Candida-induced gastritis. For this, the failure of conventional oral dose forms to maintain the medicine localized in the abdomen for an adequate duration of time may lead to less than ideal therapeutic outcomes. Floating microspheres solve this issue by maintaining buoyancy in gastric fluids, which enables a longer duration of medicine action in the stomach, a process known as "prolonging gastric retention." In this paper, the same has been proposed and evaluated for different parameters. The micromeritic analysis shows that the new microsphere formulation has optimal particle size and excellent bulk and flow properties. Additionally, a maximum drug release of 98.1% was attained by optimizing the procedure. The analysis unequivocally demonstrated that the generated microsphere formulations had ideal evaluation criteria.