Tablets Flashcards
Tablets normally contain excipients in addition to the active ingredients. TRUE OR FALSE?
TRUE
Tablets are mainly used for systemic delivery. TRUE OR FALSE?
TRUE
Drug must dissolve first before being absorbed - needs to disintergrate/ needs to dissolve (dissolution). TRUE OR FALSE?
TRUE
How can tablets be adninistered?
- Swallowing whole
- After being chewed
- Retaining in the mouth - avoids acidic environments int he stomach
- Buccal (designed to release drug slowly)
- Sublingual (designed for fast action)
- Dissolve or disperse in water before admin
What are some of the disads for tablets as dosage form?
- Poor bioavailability of poorly water soluble drugs
- difficult to swallow for some patients
- Iriitation to the GI tract (some drugs)
What are some general attricbutes for a good tablet?
- Correct dose
- Elegant weight an dsize are consitent
- Drug should be released in a controlled way
- Biocompatible - non toxic excipients
- Sufficient mechanical strength to survive transport and handling
- Physically, chemically and biologically stable
- Properly packed
How are tablets formed?
-By forcing particles into close proximity to each other by powder compaction so that the particles cohere into a porous solid of defined shape
What is powder compaction?
The formation of a porous specimen of defined geometry by powder compression
What is powder compression?
-Reduction of volume of a pwder due to the application of a force
Describe the three stages of tablet formation?
- The filling stage - powder fills teh die by gravoty or centrifugal force
- The compression stage - The upper punch lowers into the die and the powder is compressed, then the upper punch moves up
- The ejection stage - the lower punch moves up to reject the tablet
Describe the single punch tablet press?
- One die and one pair of punches
- The hopper shoe moves to and from the die by translational or rotational movement
- Tablet weight
- Lower punch remains stationary during compaction
- About 200 tablets per minute
Describe the rotary tablet presses?
- Many dies on the die table and many pairs of punches
- Die table and punches rotate together
- The same punches always works with the same die
- 10000 tablets per min can be made
- Suitable for mass production
What are the reasons for granulation for tableting?
- To improve flowability of the powder
- To improve mixing homogeneity and reduce segregation
- To improve the compactability of the powder (e.g addition of binder)
- To improve density of powder
- To ensure a homorgeneous colour of the tablets
- To improve dissolution or poorly soluble drugs by dispersing fine powdes of the drug in hydrophilic diluent
Describe the process of tableting via wet granulation?
- Dry powder mixing -disintergrant can slo be included in this step
- Wet granulation
- Dry granules
- Dry granules of controlled particle sizes
- Tableting
What are the disads of tablet production via wet granulation?
- Production time is long
- Consumes energy in the drying process in wet granulation
- Stability problems - some drugs are not stable in wet conditions
- High costs
What are the adavantages for tablet production by direct compaction?
- Simplified production procedure -only two steps
- Reduced production time
- Reduced consumption of energy
- Low cost due to reduced consumption of energy and time
- Less stability issues
- Potentially faster dissolution
What are the disads for tablet production by direct compaction?
- Need special grades for excipients
- Higher risk powder segregation
- Powders of high drug content is difficult to form into tablet if the drug has poor compactability
What two types of drugs is direct compaction used for?
- Drugs that have good flowabiltiy (e.g powders with large size)
- Potent drugs that are of low content (in this case the powder properties are controlled by excipients
List some type of tablet excipients
- Diluent (bulking agent)
- Disintegrant
- Binding agent
- Glidant (improves the flow of powders)
- Lubricant (reduces friction between powder and die)
- Antiadherent
- Sorbent
What are the ideal features for an ideal diluent?
- Biocompactible
- Chemically inert
- Non-hygroscopic
- Low cost
- Good compressibility and compactibility
- Acceptable taste
Describe lactose as a diluent ?
- dissolves readily/most commonly used filler in tablets/pleasant taste/available as anhydrous and crystalline/anhydrous lactose possesses excellent compaction properties
What are the disads for using lactose as a diluent?
- Intolerant to some people
- Anhydrous lactose may spontaneously convert to the more stable crystalline form
Describe celluose powder as a dileunt and its disads?
- Biocompactible
- inert
- Good disintegrating properties
- Good compactibility
Disads
-Hygroscopic
What is the purpose for disintegrants?
-added to formulation to ensure that tablets break up to small particles when in contact with liquid
What si the mechanism of which disintegrants work?
- Facilitates water uptake (helping to transport water into the pores)
- Cappilary forces suck water into the tablets
- Rupture the tablets by swelling of the disintegrant
- deformed particles restore to their original shape upon contact with water
- Particles repulsion upon contact with water
- Production of CO2 (for effervescent tablets)
Name a few disintegrants?
- Starch (potato,corn,maize)
- Cellulose
- Modified starch or modified cellulose
- Gas generating disintegrant (bicarbonates/CO2 is produced in contact with water
Why are binder added?
-To ensure that tablets can be formed with require mechanical strength