Abstract

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF LEVOFLOXACIN FLOATING TABLETS

Ashwini Islavath* and Ramya Deepthi

ABSTRACT

Recently, many drugs have been formulated as floating drug delivery systems with an objective to sustain release and restrict the region of drug release to stomach. The purpose of the investigation was to prepare a gastro retentive drug delivery system of Levofloxacin. Levofloxacin is a synthetic chemotherapeutic agent used to treat severe or life-threatening bacterial infections. Levofloxacin belongs to the class of fluoroquinolone(or quinolone) anti-infectives. Levofloxacin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is active against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. It functions by inhibiting DNA gyrase, a type II topoisomerase, and topoisomerase iv, which is an enzyme necessary to separate replicated DNA, thereby inhibiting cell division. Different formulations were formulated using various concentrations of Guar gum and Ethyl Cellulose. All the formulations were evaluated for physico-chemical parameterlike weight variation, thickness, hardness, friability, drug content, swelling index, floating lag time and in-vitro drug release. In-vitro drug release data was treated according to Zero, First, Korsemeyer-Peppa’sand Higuchi’s kinetics to access the mechanism of drug release. On the basis of in-vitro release studies & physico-chemical parameters, the formulation F7 with 30% of Guar gum, 5% ethyl cellulose and 15% NaHCO3 sustained drug release with maximum cumulative of 98.79% for a period of 12h and it was found to be better than other formulations, hence F7 was selected as optimized formulation. The main aim was to optimize the formulation for 12 hrs in‐vitro drug release with the use of polymer.

Keywords: Levofloxacin, Floating tablets, Gastro retentive, Guar gum.