New oral solid dosage form for furosemide oral administration

Furosemide (FURO) is a drug labeled in class IV of the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS) as it is both poor soluble and poor permeable. The aim of this work was to improve FURO biopharmaceutical properties by its formulation in a new solid oral dosage form. It consists in the realization of the composite MgAl-HTlc-FURO, obtained by FURO intercalation into the inorganic matrix hydrotalcite (MgAl-HTlc), and its successive formulation in tablets intended to be swallowed whole and to disintegrate rapidly in the stomach. These formulations were prepared by direct compression of a simple powder mixture constituted by MgAl-HTlc-FURO, a super disintegrant (Explotab, PolyplasdoneXL, PolyplasdoneXL-10, PolyplasdoneINF 10 or L-HPCLH-21) and a filler. The prepared formulations were submitted to disintegration time tests, and only those displaying the lowest disintegration time in gastric medium were submitted to in vitro release studies. Drug dissolution profiles from MgAl-HTlc-FURO tablets were compared with those containing crystalline FURO alone or physically mixed to MgAl-HTlc instead of MgAl-HTlc-FURO. The results revealed that tablets containing MgAl-HTlc-FURO give the best dissolution profile and that L-HPCLH-21 is able to promote the highest drug release in gastric medium, resulting in the most suitable super disintegrant in comparison with the other tested.