Formulation and Evaluation of an Oral Floating Tablet of Cephalexin

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to formulate an oral floating tablet of cephalexin (CEF) using the hydrophilic polymer hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), gas generating agent sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. A 3² factorial design was applied systematically; the amount of citric acid (X1) and amount of HPMC K100M (X2) were selected as independent variables. The time required for 50% drug release (t ), percentage drug release at 12hr (Q ) and 50% 12 percentage drug release at 6 hr (Q ) were selected as dependent variables. The results of factorial design indicated 6 that high level of HPMC K100M and citric acid favors preparation of floating sustained release tablet of cephalexin. The granules were prepared by wet granulation method and evaluated for their granules properties. Tablets were compressed by KBr press and evaluated with different parameters like diameter, thickness, average weight, hardness, friability, drug content, in vitro buoyancy study, swelling characteristics, scanning electron microscopy, kinetic release data. Hardness was found to being the range of 13 ± 0.23 to 13 ± 0.40 kg/cm², the percent friability was in the range of 0.0010 ± 0.02 to 0.0027 ± 0.01, and tablets showed 99.63 ± 0.12 to 115.73 ± 0.13 of the labeled amount of cephalexin indicating uniformity content. The tablets containing CEF released 72.28 to 99.461 % of drug at the end of 12 hr by in vitro release study. The drug release followed the Korsmeyer and Peppas model controlled mechanism of cephalexin tablet.

Keywords: Cephalexin, Hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose, gastroretentive, floating drug delivery, sustained release