Investigations of personalized and sustainable approach of oral drug delivery systems through additive manufacturing

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to print a thermolabile drug-containing tablet using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique and analyze its mechanical, pharmaceutical and environmental feasibility using a variety of tests. Design/methodology/approach Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is the thermally-sensitive drug impregnated into polyvinyl alcohol excipient using ethanol-water mixture and printed by an FDM printer by varying three parameters without using any external stabilizing agent. Afterward, Taguchi analysis has been performed on these parameters to recognize the significant factors and interactions. Besides this, a regression model has been obtained based on the dissolution data. Various thermo-mechanical and pharmaceutical tests have been carried out to confirm the feasibility. Finally, a life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis has been carried out to compare it with the existing tableting method by considering the environmental impacts. Findings The dissolution profile was found to follow the Korsmeyer-Peppas model, where the drug release occurred both by dissolution and erosion. Further, the infill percent has been found as the most significant parameter. The characterization tests and imaging outputs proved the fidelity of this attempt. Finally, the three-dimensional printed method was found to be more environmentally sustainable than the existing conventional tableting process. Originality/value LCA on a printed tablet is a one-of-a-kind attempt. Thus, this research attempt delivered another approach to print personalized tablets at a temperature lower than prescribed temperatures with required release behavior and can contribute toward the quest of sustainable personalized medication.

Current trends, applications, and challenges of coatings on additive manufacturing based biopolymers: A state of art review

“…Currently, AM is being used in biomedical domain for bioprinting of organs, [73] tools for surgeries, [74] anatomical models for preoperative surgery, [75] patient specific implants, [76] dentistry and orthopedic applications, [77] medical devices and physiotherapy. [78] Additive manufactured biomedical implants [79,80] offer benefits such as:…”

Parametric experimental investigation of additive manufacturing-based distal ulna bone plate: a response surface methodology-based design approach

“…Additive manufacturing (AM), also called 3D printing technique, has been developed in the recent era and is being widely used in education, manufacturing, construction, aerospace, robotics, art and jewellery industries (Gao et al, 2015;Wong and Hernandez, 2012). This technology offers a variety of advantages such as minimization of waste and production cost (Jiang et al, 2019), requirement of less labor (Zijm et al, 2019) and fabrication of complex and customized parts (Reddy et al, 2021). Integration of AM with digital medical imaging techniques and computer-aided design has led to the emergence of AM in biomedical field for fabrication of patient-specific implants (Al-Ahmari et al, 2015;Singh et al, 2021Singh et al, , 2022.…”

Investigations of hybrid infill pattern in additive manufactured tablets: A novel approach towards tunable drug release

“…34 Further, notable contributions in this direction have been offered by many other researchers carrying out dissolution studies with several other printing infill patterns. 15,31,35 Buyukgoz et al attributed the influence of printing strategies to the surface area to volume ratio (SA/V) being the dominant factor. 36 Based on the previous literature survey, it can be noted that the infill patterns could be the determining factor, if the drug content, infill density, and tablet size have been pre-determined.…”

“…23 The present authors have earlier utilized this technique to load Vitamin C drug and incorporated a creative approach to promote higher loading percentage. 15 Nevertheless, this anomaly was tackled with a widely used drug loading technique, that is, HME. This method have been highly favored by the researchers due to its capability to provide any amount of drug loading as per requirement.…”