(Open access funding provided by Semmelweis University)
Subjects:
Pharmacology and pharmacy
MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES
Most of the commercially available pharmaceutical products for oral
administration route are marketed in the tablet dosage forms. However, compression
of
multiparticulate systems is a challenge for the pharmaceutical research and industry,
especially if the individual unit is a coated particle, as the release of the active
ingredient
depends on the integrity of the coating. In the present study, polymer-coated pellets
tableted
with different types of excipients (powder, granules, pellets) then were investigated
by
various tablet-destructive (microscopic) and tablet non-destructive (microfocus X-ray;
microCT) imaging methods. The information obtained from the independent evaluation
of
the in vitro drug release profiles model is confirmed by the results obtained by image
analysis,
regardless of whether X-ray or stereomicroscopic images of the coated, tableted pellets
were
used for image analysis. The results of this study show that the novel easy-to-use,
fast, and
non-destructive MFX method is a good alternative to the already used microscopic image
analysis methods regarding the characterization of particulates, compressed into tablets.
