In this study, the swelling behaviour of copolymer hydrogels of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) and itaconic acid (IA) in response to temperature and pH value of the external media was studied. The equilibrium degree of swelling for PNIPAM and PNIPAM/IA copolymers was greater at 25 degrees C than at 37 degrees C. The degree of swelling was low at low pH values. As the degree of ionization increased above the nominal pK(a) values of IA, the increased hydrophilicity resulted in larger degrees of swelling. At 37 degrees C, the PNIPAM hydrogel and some copolymers show anomalous swelling behaviour, i.e. the overshooting effect, in buffered solutions of certain pH values. A swelling-deswelling study showed that the deswelling process of the hydrogels was faster then the swelling process. According to dynamic swelling studies, the diffusion exponent and the diffusion coefficient both increase with increasing content of IA. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.