Abstract
The flexibility of dose and dosage forms makes 3D printing a very interesting tool for personalized medicine, with fused deposition modeling being the most promising and intensively developed method. In our research, we analyzed how various types of disintegrants and drug loading in poly(vinyl alcohol)-based filaments affect their mechanical properties and printability. We also assessed the effect of drug dosage and tablet spatial structure on the dissolution profiles. Given that the development of a method that allows the production of dosage forms with different properties from a single drug-loaded filament is desirable, we developed a method of printing ketoprofen tablets with different dose and dissolution profiles from a single feedstock filament. We optimized the filament preparation by hot-melt extrusion and characterized them. Then, we printed single, bi-, and tri-layer tablets varying with dose, infill density, internal structure, and composition. We analyzed the reproducibility of a spatial structure, phase, and degree of molecular order of ketoprofen in the tablets, and the dissolution profiles. We have printed tablets with immediate- and sustained-release characteristics using one drug-loaded filament, which demonstrates that a single filament can serve as a versatile source for the manufacturing of tablets exhibiting various release characteristics.
Highlights
The extrusion-based 3D printing technologies can be divided into two main categories: methods relying on extruding semisolid formulations at room temperature like a pressure-assisted microsyringe, and technologies based on extrusion of melted materials, including fused deposition modeling (FDM) [4,5]
We have analyzed the possibility of preparing 3D printed tablets characterized by different dose and dissolution profiles of ketoprofen using a single feedstock filament
In the case of 50% ketoprofen-loaded filaments, the plasticizing impact of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) led to an excessive increase in filament elasticity, which caused printing problems
Summary
The extrusion-based 3D printing technologies can be divided into two main categories: methods relying on extruding semisolid formulations at room temperature (without melting materials) like a pressure-assisted microsyringe, and technologies based on extrusion of melted materials, including fused deposition modeling (FDM) [4,5]. These technologies, especially methods using melted polymers, are very promising 3D printing methods for preparing patient-specific medicines. It was confirmed by the recent approval of T19 for the Investigational New Drug (IND) program by the US
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