Preparation and biopharmaceutical evaluation of microcapsules of ampicillin.

Microencapsulation of ampicillin, an orally administered antibiotic, with different viscosity grades of ethyl cellulose was studied. The preparation of microcapsules was done as follows; the mixture of ethyl cellulose-CH2Cl2-ampicillin was dispersed in purified water containing 0.5% (w/w) sodium lauryl benzenesulfonate, and then CH2Cl2 was dried out by elevating the temperature. The dissolution curves for the release of ampicillin from microcapsules prepared using the four different viscosity grades of ethyl cellulose were quite different. The release of ampicillin increased with decreasing ethyl cellulose viscosity. The evaluation of prepared microcapsules was made using gastric-emptying-controlled rabbits. The plasma concentration of ampicillin obtained by the administration of microcapsules showed a significant sustained-release pattern. The area under the plasma concentration curve (AUC) of ampicillin obtained after a single oral administration of microcapsules prepared using 10 cps ethyl cellulose was 1.8 times greater than that obtained after double oral administration of powder. This fact will be caused by the delaying of gastric-emptying, intestinal-transit and dissolution of ampicillin there. It was confirmed that a large number of microcapsules still remained in the stomach and each microcapsules still contained ampicillin at 24 h after dosing from the experiment using gastric-emptying-controlled rabbits.