Potential use of microencapsulation for sustained drug delivery to the respiratory tract.

Microencapsulation has long been regarded as a means of achieving sustained drug delivery. In these studies, a spray drying technique was used to produce salbutamol-loaded albumin microparticles with a view to formulating a controlled release system to be used in respiratory drug delivery. Encapsulation efficiencies (40-60 % w/w) obtained using this technique compared very favourably with those obtained using emulsification procedures (1-2 % w/w).