Design and Evaluation of Fast Dissolving Oral Films of Granisetron Hydrochloride

Granisetron hydrochloride is a novel serotonin 5-HT3 receptor antagonist used as an antiemetic to treat nausea and vomiting following chemotherapy. It is well absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, but its oral bioavailability is low (60%) due to extensive first-pass metabolism which makes it an ideal candidate for rapid release drug delivery system. Hence, an attempt was made to prepare and evaluate fast dissolving oral films containing Granisetron hydrochloride as a model drug by solvent casting method using natural and synthetic polymers. Various formulations were developed with varying concentration of polymers like, CMC, HPMC and Pullulan. Citric acid was used as a disintegrating agent and Propylene glycol as a plasticizer. The prepared oral films were evaluated for their physicochemical and mechanical parameters such as Physical appearance, surface texture, Weight uniformity, surface pH, ,thickness uniformity, percentage moisture absorption, loss on drying, disintegration time, drug content uniformity, folding endurance, tensile strength, percentage elongation, in-vitro drug release, and stability studies. In-vitro release rate of Granisetron hydrochloride was studied in phosphate buffer pH 6.8. F7, F10 showed maximum release rate about 93.95% and 95.29% in 180 seconds respectively, whereas F3 showed 60.98%. The mechanism of drug release of fast dissolving oral film was found to be to be non-fickian diffusion following first order kinetics. The selected fast dissolving oral films were found to be superior to marketed conventional tablet. Short term stability studies of selected films indicated that there is no significant change with respect to physical appearance, disintegration time, drug content and in-vitro drug release.