Formulation and Evaluation of Metronidazole Nanoparticle Vaginal Gel

Abstract

Vaginal infection or vaginitis is a condition that cause infection or inflammation of the vagina, which may be caused due to bacterial infections, yeast infection, trichomoniasis, vaginal atrophy, irritants etc. Bacterial vaginosis is the inflammation caused by the overgrowth of bacteria in the vagina. Bacterial vaginosis is most common in women of reproductive age. The infection can cause thin, grayish-white discharge with unpleasant smell, itching and irritation. Several studies on metronidazole shown that metronidazole is very effective against vaginosis symptoms. The studies reveals that over 90% of the women had no symptoms after the treatment. Since Metronidazole is very effective antibiotic, it is being selected in this study. Metronidazole is a nitroimidazole class of antibiotics which can be used for pelvic inflammatory diseases namely bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, endocarditis, amoebiasis, rosacea etc. Since nanoparticles can provide sustained release, cellular targeting and intrinsic antimicrobial properties and which can improve the efficacy of prophylactic and therapeutic modality, the nanoparticle- based drug delivery will have attention in the vaginal drug delivery, hence metronidazole is incorporated to nanoparticles. Gels have the worthy properties such as acceptability, feasibility, non-toxic, non-irritant nature towards vaginal mucosa, and also gels can avoid first pass effect, vaginal gels of metronidazole are efficacious for the treatment of vaginosis. The present study is to carry out the Formulation and Evaluation of Metronidazole nanoparticle vaginal gel. In this study nanoparticle was prepared by ionic gelation method. The optimized nanoparticle were characterized by different parameters such as FTIR, SEM, drug release study, entrapment efficiency study. The antimicrobial activity of 3 formulations showed good results. Then nanoparticle gel was prepared by using formulation 3 (F3) and evaluated for appearance, pH, viscosity, spreadability, extrudability, syringeability and in vitro release study. All these studies showed good results. The antimicrobial study of formulated gel and the marketed formulation was carried out and the formulated gel showed good zone of inhibition than the marketed formulation. The in-vitro release study showed a sustained release of metronidazole from the formulation.