Development of a chlorhexidine delivery system based on dental reline acrylic resins Bettencourt, Ana F. Arias Moliz, María Teresa Antimicrobial Polymeric resins Drug delivery system Denture stomatitis Acknowledgements The authors thank the Fundaç˜ao para a Ciˆencia e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal for the financial support and Centro 2020 through the following projects: UIDB/04138/2020 and UIDP/04138/2020 (iMed. ULisboa), UIDB/05608/2020 and UIDP/05608/2020 (H&TRC), UIDP/ 04044/2020, PAMI - ROTEIRO/0328/2013 (N◦ 022158) and MATIS (CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-000014 - 3362), L. Gonçalves Principal Researcher grant (CEECIND/03143/2017). Finally, the authors would like to thank VOCO GmbH (Cuxhaven, Germany) for the donation of the Ufi Gel Hard and Prof Alice Nogueira Alves for graphical advice. The high recurrence rate of common denture stomatitis after antifungal treatment is still concerning. This condition is caused by low patient compliance and incomplete local elimination of the main etiological factor — Candida albicans, often associated with other microorganisms, such as Streptococcus species. Impregnating denture materials with antimicrobials for local delivery is a strategy that can overcome the side effects and improve the efficacy of conventional treatments (topical and/or systemic). In this work, we describe the development of three hard autopolymerizing reline acrylic resins (Kooliner, Ufi Gel Hard, and Probase Cold) loaded with different percentages of chlorhexidine (CHX). The novel formulations were characterized based on their antimicrobial activity, mechanical, morphological and surface properties, in-vitro drug release profiles, and cytotoxicity. The addition of CHX in all resins did not change their chemical and mechanical structure. Among all the tested formulations, Probase Cold loaded with 5 wt% CHX showed the most promising results in terms of antimicrobial activity and lack of serious detrimental mechanical, morphological, surface, and biological properties. 2023-02-17T11:42:01Z 2023-02-17T11:42:01Z 2022-12-11 journal article International Journal of Pharmaceutics 631 (2023) 122470 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2022.122470] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/80034 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2022.122470 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier