Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of enhancement of aripiprazole dissolution by solid dispersion technique. Solid dispersions (SDs) of aripiprazole were prepared by solvent evaporation technique using various polymeric drug carriers like Hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), Polyethylene glycol (PEG), Poly vinyl pyrolidone (PVP), Croscarmellose sodium (CCS), Sodium starch glycolate (SSG) and Crospovidone (CP) and characterized for DSC, FTIR and the dissolution studies. Based on the dissolution study, SD1 and SD3 (at 10 min, 76.92 + 0.18% and 69.98 + 0.25%) showed fast and higher dissolution rate when compared to other solid dispersions and pure drug (at 30 min is 21.77 + 0.21%). These SD1 and SD3 formulations were further developed as SD7-SD10 by altering their drug, carrier ratios and observed for its drug release studies, where again SD1 and SD3 has shown higher drug release than SD7-SD10. Based on the dissolution study, SD1 and SD3 were selected for the formulation of fast dispersing tablets and evaluated for hardness, friability, weight variation and drug content. From the tablet formulations, F1 and F2 showed rapid and higher dissolution rate than others formulations and pure drug (D). F1 and F2 showed fastest disintegration time (5 sec and 6 sec) than other formulations due to use of crospovidone as superdisintegrant in these tablets absorbs a huge amount of water. The FTIR and DSC studies showed the absence of interaction between aripiprazole and CCS/CP carriers. Hence, it can be concluded that solid dispersions in association with superdisintegrants showed marked improvement in the dissolution rate of aripiprazole using solvent evaporation method.
