Abstract
High dosage and repeated ingestion of antibiotics in the treatment of pneumonia lead to inappropriate disposition of the drug and thus increase undesirable effects. Hence, this study was intended to achieve high levofloxacin concentration in lungs by targeted levofloxacin gelatin microspheres (LGMs).
The optimized LGM prepared by emulsion method was characterized for particle size, drug encapsulation efficiency, in vitro study, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and stability studies. The in vivo lung targeting efficiency parameters such as intake rate (r (e)), targeting efficacy (t (e)), overall drug targeting efficacy (T (e)), percentage of drug distributed to lungs (j), and ratio of peak concentration (C (e)) were investigated.
The mean particle size ranged from 6.28 to 19.72 mu m, which can get deposited in lungs by mechanical entrapment. The curve fitting analysis showed significance for Koresmeyer-Peppas model (R-square = 0.9959). The levofloxacin area under the curve (AUC; 899.62 mu g h mL(-1)) and r (e) (5.74) for lung were higher and statistically significant in LGM group. Compared with spleen and liver, the t (e) in mice lung increased by a factor of 33.45 and similar to 12.74, respectively. The targeting ratio of LGM increased by a factor of 26.22 (compared to spleen) and similar to 10.58 (compared to liver). Subsequently by a factor of 4.63, C (e) in lung was higher in LGM-treated mice. An overall 87.14 % of the drug was distributed to lungs when administrated as LGM formulation. The histopathology confirmed tissue tolerability.
The gelatin microsphere allows for surface modification, and mechanically entrapped in endothelial capillary of the lung further increases affinity leading to higher levofloxacin concentration in lungs, which helps in optimizing the therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of pneumonia.