R. Maheshwari, Piyoosh Sharma, M. Tekade
Jan 11, 2018
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Influential Citations
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Quality indicators
Journal
Pharmaceutical nanotechnology
Abstract
BACKGROUND Nifedipine is a potential therapeutic agent for the treatment of cardiovascular disturbances, although it suffers from short half-life (t1/2, 2 hr). OBJECTIVE To address the problem, we first prepared nifedipine loaded sustained release microsponges and then formulated tablets for effective clinical application and patient compliance. METHOD Preparations of microsponges were carried out using different compositions of nifedipine and polymer (1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 % molar ratio) using emulsion solvent diffusion technique. RESULTS The microsponges with molar ratio 1:3 (formulation code: MF-3) found optimized as revealed by analyzing surface morphology, better powder flow properties (angle of repose; 28.80 ± 0.9, Hausner ratio 1.15 ± 0.2, % compressibility 15.28 ± 0.5% and higher % drug content (80 ± 1.9 %). Different batches of tablets were then formulated incorporating MF-3 microsponges and different proportions (10-50 %) of microcrystalline cellulose and starch as additives. Among tablet formulations, batch composed of 48% of MF-3, 30% of MCC, 20 % of starch and 2 % of talc (TF-33), showed 92.73 ± 2.19 % drug release during 24 hr in vitro release study in comparison to other batches including commercial formulation which was found to be released completely in 20 hr. Further, stability analysis revealed good drug retention of loaded nifedipine as well as consistent in vitro release pattern over a period of 90 days at 40°C and 75% RH. CONCLUSION The microsponge tablet delivery system was found to be superior concerning the therapeutic advantage as well as manufacturing feasibility of nifedipine.