Studies on controlled release effervescent osmotic pump tablets from Traditional Chinese Medicine Compound Recipe

A controlled release effervescent osmotic pump tablet (EOPT) of Traditional Chinese Medicine Compound Recipe (TCMCR), named Fuzilizhong prescription which includes acidic drugs consisted of many known and unknown effective components and has been used for several thousands years, was successfully prepared with sodium chloride, sodium hydrogen carbonate and hydroxypropylmethylcellulose(HPMC) as osmotic agents. Since the osmotic pressure in EOPT with sodium chloride and sodium hydrogen carbonate increased greatly, which was induced mostly by gas carbon dioxide generating from the reaction of sodium hydrogen carbonate and the acidic drugs in TCMCR after the fluid being imbibed into the compartment through the semipermeable membrane and the in vitro accumulative dissolution percent from prescription 3 was up to 96.6% at 14 hour, the problem that water insoluble drugs can not to be elementary osmotic pump tablet for its low dissolution rate was solved in the paper. On the basis of prescription 3, the drug in effervescent osmotic pump tablet was released controllably after HPMC was selected as retarder and has a good in-vitro-in-vivo correlation(IVIVC, r=0.9550). Threrfore, it could be concluded that the formulation of TCMCR is appropriate to being made into EOPT, which improves acidic drugs composed of soluble and poorly soluble components release more greatly and controllably. From the point of this, water insoluble drugs can be designed to elementary osmotic pump tablet for more complete dissolution release. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.