Formulation and Evaluation of Tioconazole Emulgel for Topical Drug Delivery System

The aim of present work was to develop a emulgel for the topical delivery system which is useful in the treatment of vaginal fungal infection. Emulgels having advantage of both emulsion & gels which act as a controlled drug delivery system for topically applied drugs. The Gel in formulations were prepared by dispersing Carbopol 934 & Carbapole 940 in purified water. Then oil phase & aqueous phase of the emulsion were prepared. Both the oily and aqueous phases were heated separately & then oily phase were added to the aqueous phase. add Glutaraldehyde in during of mixing of gel and emulsion in ratio 1:1 to obtain the emulgel. Prepared emulgels was investigated for different parameters. All the prepared emulgels showed acceptable physical properties concerning colour, viscosity, melting point, pH value, and spreadability. The results of in-vitro drug release showed that carbopol 934 was the formula of choice as it showed better drug release & antifungal activity. FTIR studies revealed that drug and all excipients are compatible. The data obtained from in- vitro permeation studies was treated by various conventional mathematical models (zero order, first order, Higuchi and Korsmeyer- peppa’s) to determine the release mechanism from the designed emulgel formulations. Selection of a suitable release model was based on the values of R2 (correlation coefficient), k (release constant) obtained from the curve fitting of release data. It was found that all the formulations follows the first order kinetics. The regression coefficients for the all formulations F1 to F4 of Higuchi plot was found to be almost linear. Key words: Emulgel, tioconazole, antifungal drug, topical drug delivery.