Oral dissolving films: an effective tool for fast therapeutic action

Abstract

The oral route is most familiar route as it has low cost of therapy and helps in the ease of administration of therapeutic agents which lead to high levels of patient compliance. The most known oral solid dosage forms are tablets and capsules. Many patients’ particularly pediatric and geriatric patients find it difficult to swallow tablets and hard gelatin capsules and do not take their medicines as prescribed. Difficulty in swallowing or dysphagia is identified to afflict nearly 35% of the general population. To reduce these difficulties, the growth of several fast dissolving drug delivery systems has been produced. Oral dissolving film is relatively a new dosage form in which thin film is prepared using hydrophilic polymers, which rapidly dissolves on tongue or buccal cavity. The film overcomes the danger/fear of choking. An ideal film should have the characteristics like pleasant taste, high stability, ease of handling and administration, no water necessary for administration. The present review focuses on hydrophilic polymers, plasticizers, sweeteners, flavors and colors etc which are used in the formulation of oral dissolving films including the manufacturing aspects of oral dissolving film like solvent casting method, rolling method, extrusion method and solid dispersion method and evaluation parameters like disintegration, dissolution, tensile strength, thickness, folding endurance, elastic modulus for oral dissolving films.

Three-Dimensional Printing Technologies in Oral Films Manufacturing—A Minireview

“…Processes 2023, 11, 2628 2 of 19 Oral films can be orodispersible films (fast-dissolving oral films or oral dissolving films-ODF) [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] and mucoadhesive buccal films (MBF) [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]. The ODFs are formulated for rapid drug release and subsequent absorption in the oral cavity or digestive tract [54][55][56].…”

“…Oral film formulations ensure high patient compliance due to accessibility, application/removal, retention, and analgesia [6]. They are usually prepared by classical methods (solvent and semisolid casting methods, melt extrusion, solid dispersion extrusion, and rolling) [33,61]. Currently, the most advanced tools use 3D printing technology and classical methods [62,63].…”

Untitled

“…It is retained at the application site and rapidly releases the active agent for local and/systemic absorption. Patients suffering from dysphasia, repeated emesis, motion sickness, mental disorder, pediatric and geriatric patients prefer this dosage form as they cannot swallow large quantities of water 4,5 . The oral or buccal mucosa being highly vascularized, drugs can be absorbed directly and can enter the systemic circulation without undergoing first-pass hepatic metabolism.…”