O. Garcia et al., 5-Fluorouracil trapping in poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-acrylamide)hydrogels: in vitro drug delivery studies, EUR POLYM J, 36(1), 2000, pp. 111-122
The influence of gel formulation on the diffusion of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)
included in poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-acrylamide) (poly(HEMA-co-A
)) hydrogels is reported. The synthesis of these copolymers, in different m
onomeric proportions, each one of them crosslinked with different proportio
ns of ethylenglycol dimethacrylate (90 HEMA/10 A, 75 HEMA/25 A and 50 HEMA/
50 A), allows the inclusion of 5-FU in the feed mixture of polymerization,
up to 16 mg/disc, without any chemical drug alteration; and it also makes p
ossible the control of its release over a wide range of release times that
vary between 7 h and 9 days, just by modulating the crosslinking: degree of
the copolymer as well as their comonomeric composition, maintaining suffic
iently high hydrate degrees (66-24 wt%). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All
rights reserved.