Development of Transdermal Herbal Formulation with Sustained Release for the Treatment of Mastitis in Dairy Cattle

The purpose of the present study was to develop an optimized transdermal drug delivery system of curcumin by adopting statistical optimization techniques. The response surface methodology was employed to find the combined effect of independent variables such as concentration of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose HPMC and polyvinylpyrrolidone PVP which significantly influence characteristics such as cumulative drug release up to 24 hours moisture content and folding endurance. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy studies were performed which revealed no interaction between drug and excipients. According to two factorial design the composition of optimized film contained 200 mg of HPMC and 50 mg of PVP. The optimized patch exhibited a cumulative drug release of 70.21 at the 24th hour moisture content of 12.45 and a folding endurance of 83 thus showing good physicochemical and mechanical properties. It could be concluded that by employing statistical optimization techniques a transdermal herbal patch of curcumin with good drug release characteristics and other desirable properties can be developed. This warrants the need for further studies to be conducted that test the efficacy of this formulation in dairy cattle.