Abstract

ANTI-PARKINSONISM FAST DISINTEGRATING TABLETS DEVELOPMENT AND STABILITY TESTING

Jisha Gopi and Umesh Kumar Sharma*

ABSTRACT

Tablet, one of the most commonly used and preferred dosage form by the patients and highly recommended by medical practitioners worldwide. Recently fast disintegrating technology is gaining more popularity among the tablets because of its quick onset of action to rapid ingress of water to the tablet core creating a porous structure results in quick disintegration. The fast disintegrating oral tablets disintegrates in a matter of seconds without the water and offer ease to the patient. Levodopa and Carbidopa are the anti-parkinsonism drugs used in a combination of 4:1 for the management of Parkinsonism. Presently only conventional form of tablets are available and no fast disintegrating tablet are available commercially. Direct compression method is used to prepare the tablets total six formulations are prepared by different composition and concentration of additives (binding and disintegrating agents). The Pre-formulation studies like drug and excipient compatibility, bulk density, tapped density and post-compression studies such as weight variation, size variation, hardness, friability, disintegration, content uniformity and dissolution were executed. The stability testing was also performed in the stability chambers at (30±2ºC / 65±5% RH) and accelerated conditions (40±2ºC / 75±5% RH) for 1 year. The drug release was also assessed by UV spectrometric method at 280 nm. The disintegration time of the formulations was found to be very fast in a range of 12- 18 sec. The drug release pattern from the tablets has been found to be very quick with almost more than 92.6 % drug released within 15 min and the drug release followed Higuchi model. The use of super disintegrating agents like micro crystalline cellulose greatly influences the disintegration of tablets which promotes the rapid release of the active drug. The binding agents are responsible for the tensile strength of the tablets. The storage stability studies for one year showed no substantial variation in drug content and other properties of the tablets. From the present work it was concluded that the super Disintegrants facilitates the fast disintegration of tablets containing anti-parkinsonism drugs.

Keywords: Levodopa, Carbidopa, Direct compression, Super Disintegrants, Fast Disintegrating Tablets, Anti-parkinsonism.