Dexamethasone Delivery from Silicone Rubber Matrices: Investigating the Effects of Porogen Particle Size on the Drug Release Profile Using a Percolation Model

Silicone rubber is customarily used to develop long-acting drug delivery devices especially implantable ones. Considering the lipophilic nature of silicone rubbers, they aremostly used to deliver lipophilic drugs to satisfy polymer-drug compatibility. [1] This compatibility, in turn, causes lengthydrug release profiles, exceeding years in some cases, inappropriate for many applications. [1-2] For example, the critical inflammatory period after surgical implantation ofcochlear implants needing corticosteroids delivery is only 6-8 weeks and no more. To this end, different ways can be examined to limit dexamethasone (DEX) delivery time from these devices to the necessary period including fabrication of porous devices using a sacrificial filler i.e., NaCl as reported here.