Abstract

Tenoxicam is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug belonging to the oxicam group.The drug is slightly soluble in water. In the present investigation, solvent deposited systems of the dispersions of tenoxicam in Gelucire – 50/13 (G) and Hydroxypropyl cellulose(HPC) on Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) were prepared to enhance the dissolution of tenoxicam. Dispersions were prepared employing different proportions of the carriers. The prepared dispersions were characterized by infra-red spectroscopy, x – ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry. The dispersions exhibited higher dissolution compared to the pure drug and there were no interactions with the carriers. Dispersion in gelucire showed much higher dissolution than the dispersion in hydroxypropyl cellulose. There was an 8 and 4.8 fold increase in dissolution rate and dissolution efficiency respectively with the T-G-MCC (1:2:7) solvent deposited system when compared with the pure drug tenoxicam. When the dispersions were deposited on microcrystalline cellulose – it resulted in products with not only much higher dissolution but also having better flow properties enabling easy compression into tablets. Fast dissolving tablets of tenoxicam wereformulated by employing the solvent deposited systems of the dispersions of the drug in gelucire and hydroxypropyl cellulose. All the tablets showed good pharmaceutical characteristics and exhibited rapid dissolution. From the results of the investigation in may be concluded that employing solvent deposited systems of the solid dispersions of tenoxicam is a useful approach to prepare the fast dissolving tablets of tenoxicam.