Formulation and In-Vitro Evaluation of Ethyl Cellulose Microspheres by Novel Quasiemulsification Method for Colonic Delivery of Metronidazole

The present study was aimed to develop and evaluate different polymeric microspheres for colon-specific delivery of Metronidazole for better treatment of colonic diseases. Different approaches for colon-specific drug delivery have been studied over the last decade, including pro-drugs, polymeric coating using pH sensitive or bacterial degradable polymers and matrices. In this research work we present colon-specific ethyl cellulose microspheres to deliver active molecules to the colonic region, which combine pH-dependent and controlled release properties. Microspheres were prepared by modified Novel Quasiemulsification solvent-diffusion method to study the effect of ethyl cellulose on drug release with different proportions of metronidazole and ethyl cellulose. Prepared microspheres of ethyl cellulose were evaluated for size, morphology, sphericity study, percentage yield, loose surface crystal study, drug content and entrapment efficiency. In vitro drug release study was conducted by buffer change method to mimic Gastro Intestinal environment. The investigations revealed that microspheres prepared with metronidazole: ethyl cellulose ratio (1:2) show only 19.394 ±0.67% drug release in first 5 hours and 46.72 ±0.69% in 12 hours, which prove the potentiality of ethyl cellulose for colonic delivery of drugs.