Solubility enhancement of ketoconazole using co-solvency and micellar solubilisation for oral solution / Nor Farah Wahida Mohd Safki

Fungi is an organism which can breed and spread on the body surface and cause local infection to the skin, mouth, nails and vagina. Besides that, it will also cause systemic infection that may affect the internal organs especially towards person with impaired immune system. Nowadays, there are many antifungal agents that already available in market. Ketoconazole is one of the antifungal drugs that is effective in both systemic and topical action. However, the problem with ketoconazole is it has poor solubility in aqueous media. As our body system mainly consists of water, the bioavailability of this agent in the body is low. So, the objective of this research was to enhance the solubility of ketoconazole to be administered as oral solution. Two methods being used in this study were cosolvency and micellar solubilisation. The solubility of ketoconazole was determined by using UV spectrophotometer. The results obtained showed that polyvinylpyrrolidone K-30 produced the highest solubilisation of ketoconazole as compared with other solvents.