Background: Chitosan is a naturally occurring biopolymer which has been widely used in a variety of biomedical applications including local antibiotic delivery due to its excellent mechanical properties, biodegradability and biocompatibility. Beads are spherical, porous carriers which are prepared from various materials including chitosan. Objectives: The aim of this study was to fabricate a new controlled delivery system for local anti-infective treatment and to study its release behaviour. Materials and methods: Twenty beads that were prepared from 1% or 2% chitosan solutions and immersed in vancomycin (VM) or teicoplanin (TN) solutions. The antibiotic release kinetics was determined by linear regression analysis supposing first order kinetics. Results: Immersion for 3 h resulted in significant increase in the total TN release that differed from 0.5 h of immersion, except for the 1% beads immersed in VM. Increasing the chitosan concentration significantly increased the total release and antibiotic load of beads. The release of TN was more delayed compared to that of VM, which allowed a gradual release beyond 3 days. The half-life (mean ± SEM) of both types of TN-containing beads was significantly extended for 3 h immersion in comparison to 0.5 h immersion (26.1 ± 5.9 vs 10.9 ± 1.0 and 17.0 ± 2.1 vs 5.1 ± 1.9; P< 0.001). However, neither increasing the chitosan concentration nor immersion time did result in any significant increase in the release of VM that was attribiuted to TN and beads physicochemical properties. Conclusions:This study demonstrated an improved control of TN release impregnated in beads. It can be concluded that chitosan beads might be considered as a novel carrier for TN delivery to infected bone for local anti-infective therapy.

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