Upendra Nagaich, Promila Sharan, Rajeev Kumar, Spriya Sharan, Neha Gulati, Amit Chaudhary

Abstract

Turning younger is on the priorities now days where caffeine is being used topically as one of the main ingredient in pharmaceutical products and at a glance in the world of cosmetics for various skin related problems like wrinkles, puffy eyes, dark circles etc.The present research work was carried out to develop caffeine loaded sustained release topical gel of Caffeine. For a suitable formulation Caffeine was used in varying concentration of two different polymers Carbopol 934 & HPMC K4M and three different formulations were prepared. Using dispersion method the gel was prepared and kept for 2h later glycerol as penetration enhancer, and Triethanolamine as cross-linking agent, NaOH to adjust pH up to 7 - 7.4, methyl para benzoate as preservative. Then the gel was evaluated for its pH, clarity, viscosity, spreadibility, drug content, in vitro release, drug release kinetics and stability studies. For the optimized formulation F2 the pH was in the range of 7.2 -7.4. The viscosity 65,000 to 76,000 cps, spreadibility 276.21gm.cm per 2.54 min for, drug content 99.00 % for F2, the In-Vitro Drug Release 96.89 % for F2. Higuchi release kinetics was applied and Quasi Fickian Diffusion and as per stability studies F2 found to more stable in case of appearance and drug content. From the conducted research we can conclude that Carbopol 934 & HPMC K4M in 1.5% and 0.5% concentration gives us an optimized Topical Gel.