Behaviour of Different Silica-Based Mesoporous as Matrixes for Drug Controlled Release

Different silica-based mesoporous materials have been synthesized, characterized and tested as matrixes for controlled drug release. The antineoplastic methotrexate has been loaded through different soaking procedures on silica-based mesoporous materials prepared using surfactant with different chain length (C16, C12, C10) to obtain porous structures with different pore diameters also in the presence of Al(OH)(3). Two samples of mesoporous silica with different morphology, MSU and HMS, have been evaluated both as-made and polymer-coated as matrices for controlled drug release using 5-fluorouracil and theophillin, respectively. Methotrexate was loaded only when alumina-silica samples are used while in both the cases in which polymer coated materials have been employed, the polymer produces an important modification of the drug diffusion profile and the complete release is considerably delayed compared with the corresponding uncoated materials.