In vitro evaluation of sustained ciprofloxacin release from κ-carrageenan-crosslinked chitosan/hydroxyapatite hydrogel nanocomposites

Although the traditional hydrogels have shown great potential applications in designing drug delivery systems, the burst release of drugs remains an issue. In this work, we develop and evaluate a sustained release of ciprofloxacin using chitosan/hydroxyapatite/κ-carrageenan complexes. The size and structure of HA nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmittance electron microscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The ciprofloxacin-loaded hydrogel nanocomposites exhibited antibacterial activity against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria. Due to the introduced HA, the release of ciprofloxacin occurred in a sustained release manner. While the pristine chitosan/κ-carrageenan complex released about 98% of ciprofloxacin during 120 h, only 52 and 66% of the loaded drug was released from hydrogel nanocomposites containing high and low content of HA, respectively. The sustained release of ciprofloxacin from the hydrogel nanocomposites identifies them as a potential candidate for designing drug delivery systems with prolonged release ability.