Role of surfactant on drug release from tablets

Abstract

The addition of a surfactant into a tablet formulation appears to be an attractive method to improve the drug release rate. The improved release rate is often associated with the effect of surfactant increasing the hydrophilicity of the dosage form thereby promoting drug dissolution. The findings of this investigation showed that the presence of surfactant influenced the tablet disintegration rate, producing a finer dispersion of disintegrated particles. It follows that the action of surfactant improving drug dissolution from tablets may be attributed to the action of surfactant producing fine disintegrated particles with correspondingly larger surface area for drug dissolution. It was also demonstrated that upon tablet disintegration the disintegrated particles have a tri-modal frequency distribution.