Fabrication of Triamcinolone Acetonide Cream and Ointment: Optimization, Evaluation and Pharmacodynamic Assessments

The present investigation describes the optimization and evaluation of topical triamcinolone acetonide (TA) cream and ointment along with their sensory test on healthy human volunteers. TA cream and ointment were prepared by fusion followed by high-speed homogenization technique. The prepared creams and ointments were subjected to evaluation for physical parameters like pH, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, viscosity, assay, drug content, in vitro diffusion studies and accelerated stability study. Further, sensory test was performed with 30 healthy human volunteers. Based on physicochemical characterizations, we found that batch FC6 was the optimized batch for TA cream and batch F3 was the optimized batch for TA ointment formulations. Results of both the optimized formulations showed favorable viscosity as compared to reference drug (Fougera). In vitro diffusion study demonstrated increased drug release with optimized batch of both cream and ointment. The optimized TA cream and ointment showed good stability when storage at accelerated conditions for three months. Finally, sensory test results indicated ‘good feel’ when both optimized formulations applied on the human skin. In conclusion, TA cream and ointment offers great potential for topical drug delivery system in the treatment of anti-inflammatory disease, which reduces the inflammation of skin.