Ocular in situ gels are a promising alternative to overcome drawbacks of conventional eye drops because they associate the advantages of solutions such as accuracy and reproducibility of dosing, or ease of administration with prolonged contact time of ointments. Chitosan is a natural polymer suitable for use in ophthalmic formulations due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability, mucoadhesive character, antibacterial and antifungal properties, permeation enhancement and corneal wound healing effects. The combination of chitosan, pH-sensitive polymer, with other stimuli-responsive polymers leads to increased mechanical strength of formulations and an improved therapeutic effect due to prolonged ocular contact time. This review describes in situ gelling systems resulting from the association of chitosan with various stimuli-responsive polymers with emphasis on the mechanism of gel formation and application in ophthalmology. It also comprises the main techniques for evaluation of chitosan in situ gels, along with requirements of safety and ocular tolerability.

Liquid marbles are versatile structures demonstrating a pseudo-Leidenfrost wetting regime formed by encapsulating microscale volumes of liquid in a particle shell. The liquid core is completely separated from the exterior through air pockets. The external phase consists of hydrophobic particles, in most cases, or hydrophilic ones distributed as aggregates. Their interesting features arise from the double solid-fluid character. Thus, these interesting formations, also known as “dry waters”, have gained attention in surface science. This review paper summarizes a series of proposed formulations, fabrication techniques and properties, in correlation with already discovered and emerging applications. A short general review of the surface properties of powders (contact angle, superficial tension) is proposed, followed by a presentation of liquid marbles’ properties (superficial characteristics, elasticity, self-propulsion etc.). Finally, applications of liquid marbles are discussed, mainly as helpful and yet to be exploited structures in the pharmaceutical and medical field. Innovative pharmaceutical forms (Pickering emulsions) are also means of use taken into account as applications which need further investigation.

The aim of this study was the development and optimization of some topical collagen-dextran sponges with flufenamic acid, designed to be potential dressings for burn wounds healing. The sponges were obtained by lyophilization of hydrogels based on type I fibrillar collagen gel extracted from calf hide, dextran and flufenamic acid, crosslinked and un-crosslinked, and designed according to a 3-factor, 3-level Box-Behnken experimental design. The sponges showed good fluid uptake ability quantified by a high swelling ratio. The flufenamic acid release profiles from sponges presented two stages—burst effect resulting in a rapid inflammation reduction, and gradual delivery ensuring the anti-inflammatory effect over a longer burn healing period. The resistance to enzymatic degradation was monitored through a weight loss parameter. The optimization of the sponge formulations was performed based on an experimental design technique combined with response surface methodology, followed by the Taguchi approach to select those formulations that are the least affected by the noise factors. The treatment of experimentally induced burns on animals with selected sponges accelerated the wound healing process and promoted a faster regeneration of the affected epithelial tissues compared to the control group. The results generated by the complex sponge characterization indicate that these formulations could be successfully used for burn dressing applications.

Obesity among children is an alarming issue due to an increased incidence over the last years with devastating physiological and psychological consequences. Current available medical diagnostic tools use invasive methods to evaluate and monitor the lipid profile, glycaemia or liver status for determining the overweight/ obesity complications. The standard methods proposed for the assay of IL6 and leptin from saliva cannot detect these two biomarkers in children saliva; the levels of IL6 and leptin in children’s saliva are lower than the limit of determination of the standard methods. Therefore, we proposed a method based on utilization of stochastic sensors, able to simultaneously perform a qualitative and quantitative determination of these two biomarkers within minutes, in the range able to cover healthy and obese children. Children from the urban area monitored for annual standard analyses and health status assessment at National Institute of Endocrinology C.I. Parhon within University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Bucharest, Romania were included in the study. In the same day, for all participants of the study, blood analyses were performed and saliva samples were collected for the determination of the IL-6 and leptin levels. The children diagnosed with overweight/ obesity presented not significantly different blood lipid profile and glycaemia comparing to the control group. Only few cases of the children presented high levels of cholesterol, low level of HDL-cholesterol, a slightly increased level of triglycerides and transaminases. No correlation with the body mass index could be established with the blood analyses results. In case of the overweight/obese children, the salivary level of the proinflammatory citokynes IL-6 (41ng/mL±21) and leptin (40.4ng/mL±28.8), were significantly increased comparing to normal weight children (IL-6 8.1±4.6, leptin 9.58±3.1). Moreover, the saliva level of the IL-6 was positively correlated with the body mass index. Salivary leptin level was highly variable in case of obese children, 6 patients presenting similar levels with the control group. Increased levels of salivary IL-6 and leptin sustain a systemic inflammation status despite normal range of standard blood analyses. The results were positively correlated in case of IL-6 with the body mass index the general accepted method used for the assessment of the obesity or overweight degree The determination of these markers in saliva samples by a stochastic method proved the utility within the medical examination for a better evaluation of the health status in obesity. The method has some advantages like: easy collection of the biological sample, fast determination of low concentrations and could be promising in case of no associated oral cavity infections or inflammations which could interfere the results.