5-Fluorouracil trapping in poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-acrylamide) hydrogels: in vitro drug delivery studies

The influence of gel formulation on the diffusion of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) included in poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-co-acrylamide) (poly(HEMA-co-A)) hydrogels is reported. The synthesis of these copolymers, in different monomeric proportions, each one of them crosslinked with different proportions of ethylenglycol dimethacrylate (90 HEMA/10 A, 75 HEMA/25 A and 50 HEMA/50 A), allows the inclusion of 5-FU in the feed mixture of polymerization, up to 16 mg/disc, without any chemical drug alteration; and it also makes possible the control of its release over a wide range of release times that vary between 7 h and 9 days, just by modulating the crosslinking degree of the copolymer as well as their comonomeric composition, maintaining sufficiently high hydrate degrees (66–24 wt%).