Abstract:Furosemide loaded electrospun fibers were prepared for buccal administration, with the aim of improving the oral bioavailability of the poorly soluble and permeable crystalline drug, which can be achieved by the increased solubility and by the circumvention of the intensive first pass metabolism. The water soluble hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) was chosen as a mucoadhesive polymer. In order to improve the electrospinnability of HPC, poly (vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) was used. During the experiments, the total polymer concentration was kept constant at 15% (w/w), and only the ratio of the two polymers (HPC-PVP = 5:5, 6:4, 7:3, 8:2, 9:1) was changed. A combination of rheological measurements with scanning electron microscopic morphological images of electrospun samples was applied for the determination of the optimum composition of the gels for fiber formation. The crystalline-amorphous transition of furosemide was tracked by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. A correlation was found between the rheological properties of the polymer solutions and their electrospinnability, and the consequent morphology of the resultant samples. With decreasing HPC ratio of the system, a transition from the spray-dried droplets to the randomly oriented fibrous structures was observed. The results enable the determination of the polymer ratio for the formation of applicable quality of electrospun fibers.

The results indicate that asthmatics experience lower QoL. As the subjects were regularly controlled asthmatics they had better general knowledge and inhaler-use technique was expected. The results suggest that it is necessary to regularly refresh asthma knowledge, to assess patients' self-management plans to achieve long-term effectiveness of asthma management.

Chronic diseases like asthma have a great impact on the everyday life of patients. Evaluation of a patient's quality of life informs us about how the patient is feeling and whether or not he or she is able to function physically, socially and emotionally. The objectives of this study were to assess the quality of life of asthmatic patients and to study the influence of age and disease severity, as independent variables, on the patient's quality of life. A 2-factor, 3-level face-centred central composite design was applied to construct a second-order polynomial model describing the effects of age and the severity on the quality of life. The second-order polynomial model was successfully applied to describe the effect of age and asthma severity with good correlation on the quality of life measured by either generic (Visual analogue scale) or disease specific (St George's Respiratory Questionnaire) instruments in the examined subjects. Our findings suggest quality of life may be used as a non-invasive patient-centred monitoring system as a guide for disease management if measured regularly.

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