Abstract

Oxcarbazepine, a new anticonvulsant drug, has been used as an add-on or first line treatment in adults and children. As precision of dosing and patient's compliance become important prerequisite for a long term antiepileptic treatment, there is a need to develop a formulation for this drug which overcomes problems such as difficulty in swallowing, inconvenience in administration while travelling and patient's acceptability. Hence, the present investigation was undertaken with a view to develop a fast dissolving tablet of oxcarbazepine which offers a new range of product having desired characteristics and intended benefits. Fast dissolve tablets of oxcarbazepine were prepared containing Avicel PH 102 as a diluent and Ac-Di-sol as a superdisintegrant by wet granulation process. All the formulations were evaluated for characteristics such as hardness, friability, weight variation, wetting ability, disintegration time and dissolution rate. A modified disintegration method was used for studying disintegration. Since the drug is poorly water soluble, drug release was tested in various media and the effect of surfactant on drug release was studied. An effective, pleasant tasting and stable formulation containing 12% Ac-Di-sol, 25% Avicel PH 102 and 8.5% starch as a binder was found to have a good hardness of 4-4.5 kg/cm², disintegration time of 28±5 s and drug release of not less than 90% within 30 min. The drug release was found to be comparable to the marketed dispersible tablet.