Fabrication of Poly (Lactic Acid) Nanofiber Carrier Loaded with Dexamethasone Drug

For many years, dexamethasone has been used as an anti-inflammatory drug and is still one of the safest glucocorticoids for treating various diseases. Due to the wide range of the side effects of this drug, it is essential to find a suitable delivering system for reduction in dosage with increased effectiveness. Electrospinning is one of the fiber fabrication methods which is widely used to develop drug carriers due to its ability to load various drugs and biological components and control their release. In this research, neat poly (lactic acid) electrospun fibers and dexamethasone loaded fibers were prepared. To evaluate the effect of polymer concentration on morphology, mechanical properties and drug release profile of the resulting fibers, three polymer concentrations of 10%, 14% and 18% w/v were processed. Thereafter, 5% w/v dexamethasone was added to solutions. The scanning electron microscopy images were investigated to obtain the average diameter of fibers and the average area of pores in each sample. In neat samples, by moving from 10% to 18% composition, the average diameter of the fibers increased by 63.21%. However, in drug loaded samples this increased by 51/19%. After evaluating mechanical properties, an increase of 81/34% in Elastic modulus by moving from 10% to 18% composition was observed. Moreover, the ultimate strength increased by 68/021% when increasing the polymer concentration from 10 to 18%. Drug release from the electrospun samples was continued up to 7 days. Linear release was observed in 10% and 14% compositions. The drug release pattern of these samples was of zero order. Considering the importance of zero order release in different applications of dexamethasone, these delivering systems could be useful. The maximum drug release rate belonged to 14% composition (0.044 1/h).