LIPOSOME BASED SUSTAINED RELEASE DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR ANTICANCER DRUG

Most of the existing anticancer drugs are very potent small molecules; their efficacy is constrained by their systemic toxicity, narrow therapeutic window, low drug loading, size control, scale up, cost of formulation but also as a result of drug resistance and limited cellular entry. Due to these obstacles, controlled and targeting or localized release technology has been replacing the systemic administration and has shown lots of potential for cancer treatment. Liposomes can be used to provide a sustained release of drugs, which require a prolonged plasma concentration at therapeutic levels to achieve the optimum therapeutic efficacy. In the present work, we formulate liposome containing the anticancer drug ‘6 Mercaptopurine’ for sustained delivery. The drug incorporation was carried out using the ether injection method. The cumulative drug release for the formulations, prepared by ether injection method, F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6 were found to be 66.33%, 63.5%, 68.78%, 62.62%, 63.8%, and 61.25% respectively. The drug release kinetics studies suggest that in the formulations prepared by ether injection method, the best fit model was first order for formulation F1, while for formulations F2, F3, F4, and  F6 the best fit model was Korsmeyer and for formulation F5 the best fit model was zero and hixon. ‘n’ exponent value for Pappas model, for formulations F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6 is greater than 0.89 indicating that formulation is released by super case 2 transport mechanism.