Improvement of fluvastatin bioavailability by loading on nanostructured lipid carriers
The aim of this study is to prepare fluvastatin nanostructured lipid carriers (FLV-NLCs) in order to find an innovative way to alleviate FLV-associated disadvantages. The limitations include poor solubility and extensive first-pass metabolism, resulting in low (30%) bioavailability and short elimination half-life (1–3 hours). FLV-NLCs were prepared by hot emulsification–ultrasonication method. Ten runs were created by three-level factorial design (32) to optimize FLV-NLCs formulation process. In this study, two factors, four responses, and three-level factorial design were endorsed. The studied variables were lipid:oil ratio (X1) and sonication time (X2). However, the responses parameter determined the particle size (Y1, nm), entrapment efficiency percent (EE%, Y2), particles zeta potential (Y3), and 80% of the drug release after 24 hours (X4). Furthermore, stability and in vivo pharmacokinetics were studied in rats. The optimized consisted formula had an average particle size of 1