Natural polymers have gained profound importance as lead compounds for delivery of drugs in treatment of various infections. Gelatin and sodium alginate have proven to own wound healing properties individually. Hence the combination of these two polymers and incorporation of drugs into their matrices may show a synergistic improvement in wound healing activity. Hence, the objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of sustained release of aminoglycoside antibiotic gentamycin from gelatin-alginate matrix, in order to establish a new delivery system for local anti-infective therapy. Thus, the drug loaded Gelatin-alginate matrices were prepared with two different gelatin concentrations (3% and 5%) and evaluated for various in vitro evaluation tests like swelling capacity, drug loading efficiency, SEM, FT-IR, in- vitro drug release by diffusion studies, antibacterial activity, and wound healing studies. The obtained matrices were characterized by good sorption properties and integrity. The release kinetics of the gentamycin followed the pattern of Higuchi kinetics revealing the diffusion controlled release from the matrix. Thereby, this study confirms that the absorbable gelatin-alginate matrix has potential for use as a delivery vehicle for aminoglycoside antibiotics. Moreover, the relatively low cost of these commercially-available products makes them attractive compared with other expensive custom-made delivery matrices.
