The study of designing a controlled drug release using oxaliplatin-loaded hydrogel for ovarian cancer treatment

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer due to its high recurrence rate. Oxaliplatin is partially cross-resistant with platinum drugs to enhance the efficacy for ovarian cancer treatment. By providing appropriate treatment for ovarian cancer, a drug carrier such as hydrogel loaded with oxaliplatin can be utilized to promote controlled drug release, prevent frequent dosing, and minimize rapid drug degradation. In this study, a novel kind of hydrogel loaded with oxaliplatin (Hydrogel-OxPt) was developed to achieve a controlled drug release. The hydrogel was synthesized by Diels–Alder reaction to ensure specificity and avoid toxic by-products which was characterized by NMR, FTIR and SEM. The results showed a peak at 1454 cm−1 which is attributed to COC Diels–Alder adduct and showed that the hydrogel is a porous material. Hydrogel-OxPt showed a controlled drug release profile where 78.8 % of oxaliplatin was released for one week. Results suggest that the mechanism of release is via diffusion where Higuchi and Korsmeyer–Peppas models showed an R2 of 0.9179 and 0.8924, respectively. The in vitro ovarian cancer cell line study has successfully proven the hydrogel-OxPt system demonstrated a good consistent oxaliplatin controlled release outcomes.