Development of progesterone electrospun nanofibers to coat Arabin pessaries as a dual preventive and therapeutic approach for preterm labor.

Preterm labor is a growing health problem that causes newborn death, and safe and effective therapy is significantly needed. Arabin pessaries and progesterone are preventive and therapeutic approaches that can be applied to managing the short cervix; hence, reducing the risk of preterm labor. The main goal of current work is to fabricate a novel nanofiber formulation based on polycaprolactone (PCL) and loaded with progesterone to coat for Arabin pessaries to be used as dual preventive and therapeutic approaches for local vaginal delivery. Several important criteria were considered in this study to assess the prepared nanofibers (i.e.; nanofiber diameter, progesterone loading efficiency, progesterone release profiles and in vitro cytotoxicity assessment). The results showed a dimeter of 397 ± 88 nm, drug loading of 142 ± 3 µg/mg and encapsulation efficiency of 99 ± 2 % for the progesterone-loaded nanofibers. Approximately, 17 % of progesterone was released from the nanofibers after 90 days. The in vitro assessment showed that the application of progesterone is safe upon 24 and 48-hours incubation on HFF-1 cell line at concentrations ≤ 32 µg/mL and within 72-hours at a dose of ≤ 8 µg/mL. To conclude, the data recommended that progesterone-loaded nanofibers can coat the Arabin pessaries with the potential of being a safe and effective dual preventive and therapeutic tool for preterm labor.