A Review of the Applications of OCT for Analysing Pharmaceutical Film Coatings

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has recently attracted a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry as a fast, contactless and non-destructive modality for quantifying thin film coatings on pharmaceutical dosage forms, which cannot be resolved easily with other techniques. In this topical review, we present an overview of the research that has been performed to date, highlighting key differences between systems and outlining major challenges ahead.

Pharmaceutical Application of Tablet Film Coating

“…However, it has disadvantages of high cost and low capacity [ 113 , 115 ]. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is also increasingly applied to pharmaceutical film coatings, allowing fast and non-destructive analysis of coating thickness and quality via high-resolution cross-sectional images [ 116 ]. Sacher et al [ 117 ] demonstrated the applicability of OCT in an industrial-scale pan coating process for real time monitoring of tablet coating quality (thickness, homogeneity, and roughness).…”

Melanins as Sustainable Resources for Advanced Biotechnological Applications

“…[ 464 ] It should be noted that optical methods including OCT are prone to scattering by different colorant, material compositions/structure thus leading to limited penetration depth (typically 100 µm–1 mm). [ 465,466 ] The optical properties of the skin can also be quantified macroscopically using spatial frequency domain spectroscopy (SFDS, which is based on diffuse optical spectroscopy) in vivo. In SFDS, tissues are illuminated with structured projections from a spatial light modulator, such as a digital micromirror device.…”

Process knowledge discovery tools in compliance with Quality by Design concept.

“…Sprzężenie spektroskopu Ramana z mikroskopem optycznym pozwala zarejestrować mapę rozkładu przestrzennego substancji w wieloskładnikowej stałej matrycy, a tym samym ocenić efektywność mieszania i jednorodność uzyskanej formulacji [12]. Z kolei stosowana dotychczas w diagnostyce gałki ocznej optyczna tomografia koherencyjna znajduje zastosowanie w monitorowaniu in-line procesu powlekania [13,14].…”