Reactive Magnetron Plasma Modification of Electrospun PLLA Scaffolds with Incorporated Chloramphenicol for Controlled Drug Release.

Surface modification with the plasma of the direct current reactive magnetron sputtering has demonstrated its efficacy as a tool for enhancing the biocompatibility of polymeric electrospun scaffolds. Improvement of the surface wettability of materials with water, as well as the formation of active chemical bonds in the near-surface layers, are the main reasons for the described effect. These surface effects are also known to increase the release rate of drugs incorporated in fibers. Herein, we investigated the effect of plasma modification on the chloramphenicol release from electrospun poly (lactic acid) fibrous scaffolds. Scaffolds with high-50 wt./wt.%-drug content were obtained. It was shown that plasma modification leads to an increase in the drug release rate and drug diffusion coefficient, while not deteriorating surface morphology and mechanical properties of scaffolds. The materials' antibacterial activity was observed to increase in the first day of the experiment, while remaining on the same level as the unmodified group during the next six days. The proposed technique for modifying the surface of scaffolds will be useful for obtaining drug delivery systems with controlled accelerated release, which can expand the possibilities of local applications of antibiotics and other drugs.

Investigation of the Size Distribution for Diffusion-Controlled Drug Release From Drug Delivery Systems of Various Geometries.

Various drug delivery systems (DDSs) are often used in modern medicine to achieve controlled and targeted drug release. Diffusional release of drugs from DDSs is often the main mechanism, especially at early times. Generally, average dimensions of DDS are used to model the drug release, but our recent work on drug release from fibers demonstrated that taking into account diameter distribution is essential. This work systematically investigated the effect of size distribution on diffusional drug release from DDSs of various geometric forms such as membranes, fibers, and spherical particles. The investigation clearly demonstrated that the size distribution has the largest effect on the drug release profiles from spherical particles compared to other geometric forms. Published experimental data for drug release from polymer microparticles and nanoparticles were fitted, and the diffusion coefficients were determined assuming reported radius distributions. Assuming the average radius when fitting the data leads to up to 5 times underestimation of the diffusion coefficient of drug in the polymer.