Sg. Wang et al., Degradation and 5-fluorouracil release behavior in vitro of polycaprolactone/poly(ethylene oxide)/polylactide tri-component copolymer, POLYM ADV T, 12(3-4), 2001, pp. 253-258
The in vitro degradation behavior of the polyester/polyether copolymer base
d on polycaprolactone/poly(ethylene oxide)/polylactide (PCEL) significantly
depends on the caproxyl (CL)/lactyl (LA) ratio for the same poly(ethylene
oxide) (PEO) content. The PCEL copolymer with rich CL units shows the cryst
alline structure of PCL with a slow degradation rate while it presents crys
talline structure of poly-L-lactide (PLLA) with more LA units that has a fa
st degradation rate. In the case of PCEL with similar CL and LA unit conten
ts, it only exhibits the crystalline structure of PEO and the degradation r
ate is faster especially during the early stage of the degradation due to t
he rapid cleavage of the PEG. The drug release system is prepared using 5-f
luorouracil (5-Fu) as the model drug and PCEL copolymers as the drug carrie
rs. It is shown that the drug release rate is controlled by the composition
, morphology and properties of the PCEL copolymer. In particular, the PCEL
copolymer with 70% LA units displays a near zero-order sustained release in
about 60 days. Therefore these copolymers have potential application as a
controlled 5-fluorouracil delivery system. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.