Ureasil Organic-Inorganic Hybrid as a Potential Carrier for Combined Delivery of Anti-Inflammatory and Anticancer Drugs.

There continues to be a need to develop controlled-release systems loaded with multiple drugs with distinct pharmacological activities, such as anti-inflammatory and anticancer effects, which are able to provide the desired release of each drug, as a function of time. To this end, an elegant strategy was developed for the incorporation, in a one-step process, of the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen (NAP) and the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU) into a ureasil organic-inorganic hybrid matrix. A ureasil-poly(oxyalkylene) (UPEO) matrix was prepared using a sol-gel route to obtain a versatile dual-drug delivery system.