Bioadhesive drug carriers for postoperative chemotherapy in bladder cancer

Transurethral resection (TUR) is the primary mode of therapy for both diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer. Due to the recurrency of tumoral tissues after TUR further treatment is necessary which is usually in the form of intravesical chemotherapy or immunotherapy. But these therapies have some disadvantages such as disturbancy to patients, adjustment of the suitable dosage, loss of active agents without using. In this study, an alternative approach was proposed and pharmaco-therapeutic agent delivery systems which will supply the suitable dosage of the agent for a certain time period were designed to solve those problems. For this aim, Mitomycin-C loaded alginate and chitosan carriers were prepared to use as an alternative system in the post-operative chemotherapy in bladder cancer. The carriers were prepared in the form of cylindirical geometries to facilitate the insertion of the carrier in in vivo studies. The effects of some parameters (i.e., polymer MW, cross-linker concentration, Mitomycin-C/polymer ratio etc.) over the morphology, swelling behavior, bioadhesion and in-vitro drug release rate of the carriers were evaluated. The obtained results for chitosan and alginate carriers were concluded comparatively.