Dispersible Tablet Meaning and Uses
What is dispersible tablet?
Dispersible tablets are tablets that disintegrate rapidly and disperse evenly in water. Compared with traditional tablets, the dispersible tablets achieved rapid disintegration into fine particles after contact with liquid by introducing appropriate disintegrators and optimizing process parameters during the preparation process, thus increasing the contact area between the drug and the dissolution medium, and significantly improving the dissolution rate and bioavailability of the drug.
Formulation of dispersion tablets
The formulation of dispersion tablets involves careful selection of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and excipients. Key ingredients often include:
Superdisintegrants: These are essential to ensure that tablets disintegrate quickly. Common superdisintegrants include crosslinked sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, sodium starch glycolate, and crosslinked povidone.
Binders: These dosage forms provide mechanical strength to the tablets and ensure that the tablets remain intact during handling. Examples include polyethylpyrrolidone (PVP), hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), and starch.
Fillers/thinners: Used to increase the volume of tablets and make them easier to handle and process. Lactose, mannitol and microcrystalline cellulose are commonly used as fillers.
Lubricant: Its main function is to reduce the friction between the components and the mechanical surface during the tablet pressing process, while preventing the finished tablet from sticking to the manufacturing equipment. In this field, magnesium stearate and stearic acid are widely adopted for their excellent properties and have become the industry standard lubrication ingredients.
Flavorings: In the design of easily dispersed tablets, flavorings can effectively mask the potentially unpleasant taste of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), ensuring that patients are more willing to accept the treatment regimen, thereby promoting the realization of efficacy.
Mechanism of disintegration
The variety of super-disintegrators used in dispersible tablets ranges from natural polymers such as starch derivatives, which are gifts of nature, to synthetic polymers such as Crospovidone and Crosscarmellose sodium, which are products of human wisdom. The special structure of these substances can absorb water and expand rapidly upon contact with water, creating enough expansion pressure to quickly disintegrate the pill into tiny particles, significantly accelerating the rate of dissolution of the drug in body fluids, and thus optimizing the bioavailability and absorption effect of the drug. This series of carefully designed steps ensures that drug ingredients can be absorbed and utilized by the body in the most efficient way, fully reflecting the subtlety of modern pharmacy.
Research and development of dispersion tablets
An ideal dispersible tablet should disintegrate rapidly, exhibit fast drug dissolution, provide quick onset of action, and have a pleasant taste. However, there is often a trade-off between the speed of drug dissolution and taste. Rapid drug dissolution can lead to poor taste, making it necessary to balance dissolution rate and palatability. Considering that drugs formulated as dispersible tablets often have poor solubility and unpleasant taste, solubilization techniques in pharmaceutics are commonly employed to address the challenges of low solubility and slow dissolution. In the actual production of dispersible tablets, techniques such as micronization, solid dispersion, and cyclodextrin inclusion are often used to improve drug dissolution. Cyclodextrin inclusion can also mitigate the unpleasant taste of some drugs. New technologies like micelles, nanocrystals, and self-emulsifying drug delivery systems are being explored to improve the solubility and dissolution of poorly soluble drugs.
To enhance the taste of dispersible tablets, flavoring agents (such as sweeteners and aromatics) are commonly used. Emerging taste-masking technologies, such as formulating drug-polymer taste-masked particles or drug-ion exchange resin complexes, aim to delay drug release and mask unpleasant tastes. However, delayed drug release often contradicts the rapid onset of action desired in dispersible tablets. Balancing the taste and dissolution characteristics of dispersible tablets remains a challenge in current research.
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Dispersible tablets benefits
Rapid action: These tablets disintegrate and disperse rapidly in the liquid, allowing the APIs to be absorbed more quickly, resulting in a faster therapeutic effect.
Enhance patient compliance: Patient compliance is one of the important factors affecting the treatment effect. Because of its easy swallowing characteristics, disperse tablets can significantly reduce the number of missed or non-medication due to dysphagia, which is essential to improve the continuity and effectiveness of long-term treatment. In addition, the texture and taste of the dispersible tablets can be optimized by adding appropriate taste correctors to further enhance patient acceptance.
Accurate dosing: Compared to liquid preparations, dispersion tablets provide accurate dosing, reducing the risk of dosing errors and ensuring consistent therapeutic effects.
Easy to take: Ordinary tablets, which need to be washed with water, are inconvenient to take, especially for the elderly, young and patients with dysphagia disorders. The dispersion tablet can be dispersed into a uniform suspension in water, easy to take, and the dispersion tablet can be swallowed directly.
Enhanced drug absorption: By rapidly dispersing the tablets in the mouth or gastrointestinal tract, the contact area between the drug and the surface of the digestive tract is increased, thus accelerating the dissolution and absorption process of the drug. This is of great significance for improving drug bioavailability and reducing dose requirements, especially when dealing with drugs with poor solubility or incomplete absorption, the advantages of disperse tablets are more obvious.
Simple preparation process: The dispersible tablet can quickly disintegrate into a uniform mixture solution in water, and form a clear or slightly milk colored aqueous solution or suspension that can pass through the sieve with a diameter of 710μm. The selection of excipients does not require the selection of effervescent agents and water-soluble excipients. The production conditions have no special requirements, and the stability is strong.
The versatility of the formulation: The versatility of dispersible tablets allows the formulation of a wide range of APIs, from antibiotics and fever-reducing drugs to antifungal and antimalarial drugs. This adaptability ensures that different treatment needs can be met without compromising the efficacy or stability of the drug.
Dispersible tablets uses
Disperse tablets are widely used in a variety of therapeutic categories. Its versatility and ease of use make it suitable for:
Psychiatric treatment: Patients with mental illness may not be able to comply with their medication regimen due to difficulty swallowing pills. Dispersive tablets can improve medication compliance in these patients.
Acute and chronic pain management: Dispersing tablets are widely used for pain management. Drugs such as analgesics and antipyretics, formulated into dispersed tablets, provide immediate relief from pain and fever. Examples include dispersed formulations of paracetamol and ibuprofen, which are often used for quick pain relief.
Anti-infective and anti-malarial drugs: Antibiotics and antimalarial drugs formulated in dispersed tablets are key to the treatment of infectious diseases. The rapid breakdown and subsequent absorption of the drug ensures the effective eradication of the pathogen, thus inhibiting the spread of the infection. Examples include dispersive formulations of amoxicillin and artemether amphtramine, which are widely used to treat bacterial infections and malaria, respectively.
Gastrointestinal therapy: Gastrointestinal drugs such as proton pump inhibitors and antiemetics clearly benefit from dispersive tablet formulations. Dispersing omeprazole and Ondansetron quickly addresses conditions such as acid reflux and nausea by ensuring a quick start of therapeutic effects.
Dispersible tablets examples
Acetaminophen dispersion tablets: Widely used for pain relief and fever reduction, these tablets are a convenient and quick alternative to traditional acetaminophen tablets.
Amoxicillin dispersible tablets: Used to treat a variety of bacterial infections, these tablets ensure that patients (especially children) get the right dose without having to swallow the pill.
Oral rehydration salts (ORS) tablets: ORS dispersible tablets are an essential medicine to treat dehydration, especially in children, and offer an easy-to-take solution to quickly replace lost fluids and electrolytes.
Ondansetron dispersible tablets: used to prevent nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. Dispersive tablets ensure rapid relief of these symptoms.