Abstract
This study was aimed at improving the analgesic activity and at minimizing the gastric ulceration potential of ibuprofen sodium through gastric buoyant in situ gelling system. Box-Behnken design was employed to optimize the formulations. The optimized gastric floating in situ gel with short floating lag time (0.8 min), low viscosity (105.75 cps), and optimum in vitro drug release at 24th h was obtained using an optimized combination of CaCO3 (1.2 % w/v); gellan gum (0.4 % w/v) and ibuprofen sodium (1.5 %w/v). The analgesic effect of optimized formulation was found to be better than that of pure ibuprofen sodium (7.61 +/- 0.23) at 4th h. Ulcerogenic study showed that optimized floating gel formulation produce less damage (almost 43% less) to the gastric mucosa than the severe gastric injury produced by pure ibuprofen sodium. Thus buoyant in situ gel approach was found to be promising in enhancing the analgesic effect and minimizing the gastric ulceration potential of ibuprofen sodium.