Description

The oral mucosal route of drug delivery has attracted the attention worldwide for optimizing the drug delivery because of ease of accessibility, patient compliance and robust nature of oral mucosa. The aim of the present study was to design unidirectional, bilayered, mucoadhesive tablets for diclofenac sodium using natural polysaccharides from Tamarindus indica and Prunus amygdalus, since the natural polymers offer advantages like low cost, non toxicity and biocompatibility over synthetic polymers. The selected drug has variable bioavailability due to extensive first pass metabolism, which makes it an ideal candidate for buccal delivery. The selected hydrogels were isolated, purified and characterized for various physicochemical properties which indicated that the polymer may sustain the drug release. Further, in the formulation of mucoadhesive tablets, various process and formulation variables such as compression force, compression time, drug-polymer ratio and penetration enhancer concentration were studied and optimized on the basis of their effect on physical properties of tablets, in vitro dissolution and mucoadhesive strength.