This report presents physical characterization and cell culture test of porous alumina-hydroxyapatite (HA) composites fabricated through protein foaming-consolidation technique. Alumina and HA powders were mixed with yolk and starch at an adjusted ratio to make slurry. The resulting slip was poured into cylindrical shaped molds and followed by foaming and consolidation via 180 °C drying for 1 h. The obtained green bodies were burned at 600 °C for 1 h, followed by sintering at temperatures of 1200-1550 °C for 2 h. Porous alumina-HA bodies with 26-77 vol.% shrinkage, 46%-52% porosity and 0.1-6.4 MPa compressive strength were obtained. The compressive strength of bodies increased with the increasing sintering temperatures. The addition of commercial HA in the body was found to increase the compressive strength, whereas the case is reverse for sol-gel derived HA. Biocompatibility study of porous alumina-HA was performed in a stirred tank bioreactor using culture of Vero cells. A good compatibility of the cells to the porous microcarriers was observed as the cells attached and grew at the surface of microcarriers at 8-120 cultured hours. The cell growth on porous alumina microcarrier was 0.015 h(-1) and increased to 0.019 h(-1) for 0.3 w/w HA-to-alumina mass ratio and decreased again to 0.017 h(-1) for 1.0 w/w ratio.
Currently, the use of natural gums and mucilage is of increasing importance in pharmaceutical formulations as valuable drug excipient. Natural plant-based materials are economic, free of side effects, biocompatible and biodegradable. Therefore, Ketoprofen matrix tablets were formulated by employing Hibiscus rosa-sinensis leaves mucilage as natural polymer and HPMC (K100M) as a synthetic polymer to sustain the drug release from matrix system. Direct compression method was used to develop sustained released matrix tablets. The formulated matrix tablets were evaluated in terms of physical appearance, weight variation, thickness, diameter, hardness, friability and in vitro drug release. The difference between the natural and synthetic polymers was investigated concurrently. Matrix tablets developed from each formulation passed all standard physical evaluation tests. The dissolution studies of formulated tablets revealed sustained drug release up to 24 h compared to the reference drug Apo Keto® SR tablets. The dissolution data later were fitted into kinetic models such as zero order equation, first order equation, Higuchi equation, Hixson Crowell equation and Korsmeyer-Peppas equation to study the release of drugs from each formulation. The best formulations were selected based on the similarity factor (f2) value of 50% and more. Through the research, it is found that by increasing the polymers concentration, the rate of drug release decreased for both natural and synthetic polymers. The best formulation was found to be F3 which contained 40% Hibiscus rosa-sinensis mucilage polymer and showed comparable dissolution profile to the reference drug with f2 value of 78.03%. The release kinetics of this formulation has shown to follow non-Fickian type which involved both diffusion and erosion mechanism. Additionally, the statistical results indicated that there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the F3 and reference drug in terms of MDT and T50% with p-values of 1.00 and 0.995 respectively.