Upon the swelling, one would evaluate the water uptake ability ofa polymeric matrix, until the system (beads) reaches the equilibrium,and the water uptake ability influences the release rates [14]. Swellingof the CH and CH–CG beads, loaded with Ls as a function of the time,are displayed in Fig. 3. CH beads showed a higher uptake profile, withQ values ranging from 4 to 6, thus reaching equilibrium after 30 min.On the other hand, CH–CG beads, showed lower water uptake, with Qvalues from 0.4 to 3.8 (σ2=0.02–0.60), therefore, not attainingequilibrium even after 100 min; this may be attributed to the additionof the crosslinking agent that reduces the expansion ability of the network. There was no noticeable change in swelling of unloaded CH–CG beads, in comparison with the loaded ones (P =0.35), likely due tothe low Ls content, in good agreement with previously reported data,whereby a low drug doping does not influenced particle swelling