Topical hydrogels to improve treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis

AYALA PATRICIO; ROMERO ANALIA; VILLEGAS MERCEDES; BRIONES CINTIA; CID ALICIA; CAMPOS SANTIAGO; GONZO, ELIO; BERMUDEZ JOSE

Córdoba

Congreso; 6ta Reunión Internacional de Ciencias Farmacéuticas. RICiFa 2020+1; 2021

Leishmaniasis is a "neglected" disease and a priority public health problem for Salta and Argentina. In this work, alternative systems of amphotericin B (AmB) and poloxamers 407 and 188 are proposed to improve the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis. Hydrogels were loaded with 0.5 and 1.0% w/w of AmB. Rheological characterization, erosion and AmB release experiments were performed from the hydrogels. The AmB loaded hydrogels showed a lower gelation temperature (Tgel) than the one without drug, where the hydrogel with 0.5% w/w AmB has a Tgel of 26.5°C, which makes it suitable for the proposed use. Also, a notable increase in complex viscosity (η *) and storage modulus (G ') was observed for this formulation. In this context, when the temperature increase from 25 to 32°C, η* increased from 2.2 to 1442.8 Pa.s and G´ from 1.6 to 8560.5 Pa. Changes in these values were not as pronounced for the gel loaded with 1%.The drug release data were fitted with the Dual Release model with an R2≥ 0.99. The 0.5% AmB hydrogel showed the fastest release rate. The average erosion rate of gel without drug was 153.6% greater than with AmB. These results suggest that AmB hydrogels can be considered a valuable alternative to improve the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis.