Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Optimization of Finasteride Nano-Emulsion Preparation Using Chemometric Approach

Soheila Honary¹ , Pouneh Ebrahimi², Mahshid Nikbakht¹

¹Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, Sari; ²Department of Chemistry, Gonbad Kavous University, PO Box 163, Gonbad, Iran.

For correspondence:- Soheila Honary Email: Shonary@yahoo.com

Received: 5 September 2012 Accepted: 4 June 2013 Published: 23 August 2013

Citation: Honary S, Ebrahimi P, Nikbakht M. Optimization of Finasteride Nano-Emulsion Preparation Using Chemometric Approach. Trop J Pharm Res 2013; 12(4):457-460 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v12i4.2

© 2013 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To study the effect of some factors on the size of finasteride nano-emulsion by chemometric approach which could predict the size of nano-emulsion droplets under different conditions.

Methods: Nano-emulsions were prepared using spontaneous emulsification method which occurs when organic and aqueous phases are mixed. The organic phase was a homogeneous solution of oil (finasteride as a lipophilic drug) and water–miscible solvent with or without lipophilic surfactant (Span^® 80), while the aqueous phase consisted of water with or without hydrophilic surfactant (Tween^® 80). Chemometric approach was applied for optimizing the size of the nano-emulsion droplets. For this purpose, the effect of three experimental parameters on size was investigated by multivariant analysis. The experiments were performed according to Box-Behnken experimental design. The factors considered were sonication time (0 – 5 min), and contents of Span-80 (0 - 0.16 %) and Tween-80 (0 - 0.26 %).

Results: The regression model obtained was characterized by both descriptive and predictive ability. The method was optimized with respect to average diameter as a response, based on a defined equation

Conclusion: The Box-Behnken experimental design is a suitable tool for optimizing and testing the robustness of the method for preparing finasteride nano-emulsion.

Keywords: Box-Behnken experimental design, Optimization, Nanoemulsion, Finasteride