Evaluation of Oromucosal Natural Gum-Based Emulgels as Novel Strategy for Photodynamic Therapy of Oral Premalignant Lesions

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) recently has been shown as a promising option in the treatment of premalignant lesions of the soft oral tissues. Effective delivery of photosensitizer is challenging due to poor drug adherence to the oromucosal epithelium. In the present work, emulgels composed of natural polysaccharide gums (tragacanth, xanthan and gellan) were evaluated as novel oromucosal platforms of delta-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) for PDT. Apart from mucoadhesive and textural analysis, the specific steps involved studies on drug penetration behavior and safety profile using a three-dimensional human oral epithelium model (HOE). All designed emulgels presented greater mucoadhesiveness when compared to commercial oromucosal gel. Incorporation of ALA affected textural properties of emulgels, and tragacanth/xanthan formulation with greater hardness and cohesiveness exhibited a protective function against the mechanical tongue stress. Permeability studies revealed that ALA is capable of penetrating across oromucosal epithelium by passive transport and all formulations promoted its absorption rate when compared to a commercial topical product with ALA. Importantly, the combination of tragacanth and xanthan profoundly enhanced photosensitizer retention in the buccal epithelium. Tested samples performed negligible reduction in cell viability and moderately low IL-1β release, confirming their non-irritancy and compatibility with HOE. Overall, the presented findings indicate that tragacanth/xanthan emulgel holds promise as an oromucosal ALA-carrier for PDT strategy.