The influence of the structure and the composition of water/AOT-Tween 85/IPM microemulsion system on transdermal delivery of 5-fluorouracil.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the structure and the composition of water/Aerosol-OT (AOT)-Tween 85/isopropylmyristate (IPM) microemulsion system (WATI) on transdermal delivery of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). The structure of WATI was characterized by measuring surface tension, density, viscosity, electric conductivity, and differential scanning calorimetry. The effect of the drug loading, water content, component compositions and the amount of mixed surfactant on permeation of 5-FU through mice skin was evaluated by using Franz-type diffusion cells. The results in vitro implied that WATI was W/O microemulsion when the water content was below 20 wt% at fixed 20 wt% of mixed surfactant at 25°C, then might be transformed to a bicontinuous structure, finally, formed O/W microemulsion with water content over 30 wt%. Increase of the drug loading can directly facilitate the penetration of the drug across the skin. Drug diffusion after 12 h from the bicontinuous microemulsion (795.1 ± 22.3 µg·cm(-2)) would be fastest compared to that from the W/O microemulsion (650.2 ± 11.7 µg·cm(-2)) and the O/W microemulsion (676.6 ± 14.8 µg·cm(-2)). The combination of AOT and IPM could bring about synergistic effect on the skin enhancement, however, Tween 85 in WATI decreased the cumulative permeation amount of 5-FU. The content of mixed surfactant had no effect on the permeation of 5-FU at fixed surfactant/cosurfactant ratio (K(m) = 2). Thus, the increased transdermal delivery the hydrophilic drug of 5-FU was found to be concerned with both of the structure and the composition of WATI.