Voriconazole is a second-generation antifungal agent with excellent broad spectrum of antifungal activity commercially available for oral and intravenous administration. Systemic administration of voriconazole is associated with side effects including visual and hepatic abnormalities. This study assessed the feasibility of using solid lipid nanoparticles for ocular delivery of voriconazole adopting stearic acid as lipidic material, tween 80 as a stabilizer, and Carbopol 934 as controlled release agent and for increasing the precorneal residence time in eye. The systems were prepared using two different methods, that is, ultrasonication method and microemulsion technique. The results indicated that the larger particle size of SLNs was found with microemulsion technique (308 ± 3.52 nm to 343 ± 3.51) compared to SLN prepared with ultrasonication method (234 ± 3.52 nm to 288 ± 4.58 nm). The polydispersity index values were less than 0.3 for all formulations and zeta potential of the prepared formulations by these two methods varied from −22.71 ± 0.63 mV to −28.86 ± 0.58 mV. Powder X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry indicated decrease in crystallinity of drug. The in vitro release study and the SLN formulations prepared with ultrasonication method demonstrated sustained release up to 12 hours. This study demonstrated that SLN prepared by ultrasonication method is more suitable than microemulsion technique without causing any significant effect on corneal hydration level.

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Voriconazole is a novel antifungal agent with excellent broad spectrum activity commercially available for oral and intravenous administration. The purpose of this study was to prepare ophthalmic formulation of hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) based voriconazole containing benzalkonium chloride BAK and EDTA with or without viscosity modifiers and study its permeation characteristics through freshly excised goat cornea. The results were observed that viscosity and force of bioadhesion of the voriconazole HP-β-CD solutions containing xanthan gum (XG) are more as compared to polyvinyl alcohol. The results revealed that voriconazole drop containing PVA provided least viscosity and higher corneal permeation of drug, while drop formulated with XG had maximum viscosity and least permeation. The HP-β-CD based voriconazole (1.5%) ophthalmic formulation containing xanthan gum (1.5), preserved with BAK and EDTA, could provide shelf life of 2 years. The microbiological studies showed that voriconazole ophthalmic solution containing xanthan gum shows better antifungal activity as compared to voriconazole and xanthan gum alone. Thus, it can be concluded that HP-β-CD based voriconazole (1.5%, pH 7.0) ophthalmic solution containing BAK and EDTA with viscosity modifier XG provided maximum precorneal residence time as compared to other viscosity modifiers and polyvinyl alcohol provided less precorneal residence time than other viscosity modifiers.

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