Efficiency of a Dexamethasone Nanosuspension as an Intratympanic Injection for Acute Hearing Loss
Abstract Background: Dexamethasone sodium phosphate (Dex-SP) is the most commonly used drug for intratympanic injection in acute hearing loss, but its penetration efficiency into the inner ear is very low. To address this problem, we evaluated the possibility of dexamethasone nanosuspensions as intratympanic injection because the lipophilicity of drugs can affect their permeation of the round window membrane, an important pathway from the middle ear to the cochlea.Results: Three types of dexamethasone nanosuspensions were prepared; the dexamethasone nanocrystals in the three nanosuspensions were between approximately 250 and 350 nm in size. In order to compare the efficiency of Dex-SP and a dexamethasone nanosuspension in delivering dexamethasone to the inner ear, the concentrations of dexamethasone in perilymph and cochlear tissues were compared by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. The dexamethasone nanosuspensions showed significantly higher drug concentrations in perilymph and cochlear tissue than Dex-SP at 6 h; interestingly, animals treated with a nanosuspension showed a 26-fold higher dexamethasone concentration in the cochlear tissue than the Dex-SP group. In addition, the dexamethasone nanosuspension achieved better glucocorticoid receptor phosphorylation than Dex-SP both in vitro and in vivo, and in the ototoxic animal model, it showed a significantly better hearing protective effect than Dex-SP against ototoxic drugs. In safety evaluation, the nanosuspension showed no toxicity at concentrations up to 20 mg/mL in an in vivo test.Conclusions: A nanosuspension of dexamethasone was able to deliver dexamethasone to the cochlea very safely and efficiently and showed potential as a formula for intratympanic injection. In addition, it can be applied in studies on the delivery of various hydrophobic antioxidants to treat acute hearing loss.