Transdermal delivery of newer atypical antipsychotics

Abstract

Risperidone and olanzapine, newer atypical antipsychotics are highly effective and safer in the treatment of psychosis. A low dose maintenance therapy of these atypical antipsychotics is needed for prolonged treatment of psychosis with lower oral side effects. To develop low dose maintenance therapy of these antipsychotics, which can minimize the risk of major side effects, help in overall cost saving and address to the problems of poor compliance in patients, eudragit containing transdermal films of risperidone and olanzapine were developed. For development of successful transdermal drug delivery system (TDDS), various permeation enhancers belonging to the group of surfactants (cationic surfactant, benzalkonium chloride (BC); anionic surfactant, sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS); non-ionic surfactant, span 20) and vegetable oils (olive oil, jojoba oil and groundnut oil) were also investigated in the present study to find out their effect on the rate of permeation of drug through TDDS. newlineThe whole research work was divided into various parts such as introduction, review of literature, preformulation studies, formulation and evaluation of TDDS of risperidone and olanzapine, in vivo studies, results and discussion and summary and conclusion. In preformulation studies, drugs were characterized by UV, IR, partition coefficient and solubility studies. FTIR studies were carried out to determine compatibility between drug and excipients. Transdermal patches of risperidone and olanzapine were prepared by solvent casting technique using Eudragit RL 100 (ERL 100) and Eudragit (ERS 100) with and without permeation enhancers (surfactants and vegetable oils in the concentration of 1%, 5% and 10% w/w of polymer weight). The prepared transdermal patches were evaluated for their physicochemical characterization viz., weight variation, thickness, drug content determination, moisture content and moisture uptake, flatness, folding endurance and tensile strength.