Electrospun intraoral patches for the directional delivery of therapeutics; a potential treatment for oral lichen planus

Oral mucosal diseases are difficult to treat due to the poor retention of the dosage form at the lesion site because of salivary washout. Additionally, the interactions of commonly applied corticosteroids with off-target tissues over long term treatment periods commonly lead to the development of secondary fungal infections. To address this a gradient electrospinning technique has been developed to enable the directional delivery of clobetasol propionate ensuring the targeted delivery of corticosteroid to the lesion site and minimal drug interaction with the rest of the oral cavity. As a preventative to the development of fungal infection and treatment of any preexisting fungal infection, fluconazole is also loaded throughout the patch for universal delivery throughout the oral cavity. The developed patches showed good spatial separation of the drug loading and appropriate mechanical properties for use in oromucosal applications. The formulations were cytocompatible with oral epithelial cells and successfully restored healing in an in vitro inflammatory challenged scratch assay model. The results show that the patches developed demonstrate potential as a therapeutic platform in the treatment of oral inflammatory diseases such as lichen planus.