Abstract

The objective of the present study was to investigate the possibility to add hyaluronic acid (HA) as skin penetration enhancer to mometasone furoate (MF) to enhance its skin absorption, and so decrease the dose and side effects in different types of topical formulations including absorption ointment base, oil in water emulsion base and water in oil emulsion base in addition to alcoholic gel base. MF was introduced into the bases with and without the addition of 0.1% HA. The prepared formulations were evaluated for physical appearance, rheological behavior, drug release through a standard cellophane membrane and antiinflammatory effects in carrageenan-induced oedema in male albino rats. Results showed that all formulations showed good and acceptable physical properties. The in-vitro release rate of each base and its corresponding one, with 0.1% HA, showed no statistical differences. The data obtained revealed that the total amount of drug released was affected by the nature and the composition of bases. Animal studies showed that the differences in decrease in oedema diameter between the full dose of MF 0.1% and the half and the quarter dose of MF with hyaluronic acid sodium salt 0.1% added were unnoticed and the statistical analysis showed that the difference was insignificant (pgt;0.05).