A Novel Drug Delivery System for Amphotericin B to Treat Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis is an infectious disease caused by leishmenia protozoan and pollution. This is why most developing countries such as India and South Africa suffer from its expansion. Even in Tunisia, an endemic situation was noticed. In this context, the aim of this study was to elaborate a suitable hydrogel to be used as drug carrier of Amphotericin B for antileishmanial treatment. Therefore, a radiation crosslinked Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) hydrogel was synthesized depending on the composition, with varying concentration of PVP, agar, and Polyethylene glycol (PEG) used as a plasticizer as a function of irradiation dose. The polymers were characterized using Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), and rheological measurements. Based on Elastic modulus, sample with 3% PEG was found to be fitter for wound dressing application. The putative antileishmanial and cytotoxic activity of this hydrogel was investigated. It has been shown that in the presence of hydrogel, the activity of Amphotericin on Leishmania promastigotes is markedly improved with an increase of selectivity index from 10.54 to 56.8.