Design and Evaluation of Gastroretentive Floating Matrix Tablets of Ambroxol Hydrochloride

Author(s): Ramana Gangireddy*, Apoorva Kolagani, Kameswari Priyanka D and Gayatri P

Abstract: Gastroretentive drug delivery is a special approach which remains in the gastric region for a prolonged period to increase gastric residence time and also have the advantage of site-specific drug delivery especially in the upper gastrointestinal tract (GIT) for local or systemic effects. Ambroxol hydrochloride is a systemically active mucolytic agent with a half-life of 3-4 hours. It acts by breakdown of acid muco polysaccharide fibres which make the sputum thinner and less viscous as long as treatment is maintained and therefore more easily sputum was removed by coughing. The main aim of the present work is to develop the oral controlled release floating matrix tablets of Ambroxol hydrochloride by direct compression method, using various hydrophilic polymers such as HPMCK100M, Carbopol971P, Polyethylene oxide. FT-IR studies revealed that there was no incompatibility between the drug and polymers used. All the formulations remained buoyant without any disintegration. The formulations F4, F9, F15 have shown the extended drug release close to that of marketed formulation for a period of 12 hours. To ascertain the mechanism of drug release in-vitro data was fitted into various release kinetic models like zero order, first order, Higuchi and Peppas. The values indicated the non-fickian diffusion with slow erosion of polymer matrix followed by drug diffusion and resulted in linear drug release profile over a prolonged period of time.

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