Deva Sharma

The present study deals with the formulation of multiple type floating beads of Ofloxacin to prolong gastric residence time (upto 24 hours) for slow and complete release in stomach and to provide sustained release action. Since, its solubility and absorption is better in the upper part of GI tract, so it was proposed to prepare floating beads of Ofloxacin to localize the drug at its maximum absorption site. Floating beads were prepared by drop wise addition of 3%, 4%, or 5% w/v Sodium Alginate solution containing drug and different gas forming agents or oils, into Calcium chloride solution 1% w/v in glacial acetic acid (10%) using 21 G needle.  The solution containing suspended beads were stirred with magnetic stirrer for 10 minutes to improve the mechanical strength of beads and allowed to complete the reaction to produce gas.  The fully formed beads were collected, washed with ethanol and distilled water and subsequently dried. Different oils such as Peppermint oil and Light liquid paraffin were used in the ratio of 3:5, 3:10, 3:15, and 3:20 respectively. The beads were evaluated for average diameter of beads, lag time, duration of floating drug entrapment efficiency, percent drug loading, floating time and in-vitro drug release in fasted and fed state. As we increased the concentration of polymer and oils, the diameter of beads increases taking all the parameters such as drug ratio, curing agent, curing time, needle nozzle size, dropping rate and height of needle from calcium chloride solution to be constant. The gastric retention of sodium alginate floating beads was best found to be using 20% light liquid paraffin. Also the lag time at this concentration was found to be zero thus leading to float into stomach for upto 24 hours. The drug release profile was best observed in using 4% of sodium alginate polymer and it was 92.719% in 20 hours. Keywords-floating beads, ionotropic gelation, beads size, effervescent system, sodium alginate