| Summary: | A novel drug delivery system consisting of drug-loaded microparticles encapsulated within larger hollow microcapsules had been devised. The novelty of this system is that microparticles can simultaneously be loaded with multiple drug types before being packed into a single microsphere. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed system, the system was fabricated through a modified two step O/W/O/W solvent emulsion technique. Poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) microparticles were first fabricated separately with two different flurophores, Coumarin 6 and Rhodamine 6G respectively. The flurophore-dye loaded PLLA microparticles were then mixed together and subsequently entrapped within degradable Poly [(D,L-lactide)-co-glycolide] (PLGA) microcapsules. SEM, Confocal and FTIR results had shown that fluorophore-loaded microparticles were successfully incorporated into a single hollow microcapsule. Ibuprofen was then loaded into the PLLA microparticles before encapsulation by the PLGA microcapsule to validate the capability of the system for drug hosting and delivery.
|
|---|