Production of tamoxifen loaded alginate/starch beads and examination of drug release properties

In this work, entrapment of Tamoxifen onto alginate-starch microbeads and production of controlled release material were investigated. For this, microbeads were produced using alginate and starch natural polymers. Production of alginate-starch microbeads was optimized and combination of 1.5% alginate and 100 mg of starch was found to be optimum mixture for the production of carrier matrix. Microbeads produced were examined physically using FTIR, DSC, and SEM and it was found that the beads had 2mm diameter approximately and Tamoxifen was physically entrapped to microbeads. The highest entrapment efficiency was calculated to be 99.4% whereas loading capacity was calculated to be 0.92%. The effect of temperature on entrapment efficiency was investigated and it was determined that 25 °C was the most suitable temperature. Swelling tests in distilled water and in vitro stomach medium showed approximately 70% swelling whereas swelling in gastrointestinal fluid was 2802%. Tamoxifen release from microbeads was tested for in vitro stomach and small intestine media either separately or successively. It was found that 12.01%, 39.11% and 44.34% release was achieved for stomach, small intestine and both, respectively. Release kinetics of Tamoxifen was found to fit to Korsmeyer-Peppas kinetics. It is concluded that the results of this work will shed light on production of controlled release matrix for Tamoxifen.