Polymers blends and their effects on the mechanical behavior and physical properties of prolonged release tablets prepared by direct compression

MastersAt present, all the matrix forming polymers being studied are used extensively in pharmaceuticals to control the release of drug. The approach of the present study was to make a comparative evaluation among these polymers and to assess the effect of physicochemical nature of the active ingredient on drug release profile. The study reveals that, the release of water soluble drug as higher than the drug with lower solubility and the extent of release rate was changed with the nature and content of polymer in the matrix. The type of polymers used imparts a conspicuous effect on release mechanism. The data generated in this study also shows that, the drug release from formula based on combination of plastic and elastic matrices was different upon changing the weight ratio of both. The release was more extended by increasing the plastic polymer weight ratio. In addition, different profiles were recorded by combining the plastic polymers with a brittle one, in which the more the plastic content, the higher the release percentage observed. Consequently, the drug aqueous solubility has markedly affected drug release pattern from the tablet formulations. However, a number of critical parameters such as tabletting conditions, compression forces, upper and lower punch compression forces, hardness, tensile strength and friability will affect the physicho-mechanical behavior of the tablets from different matrices. Those parameters should be taken into consideration during formulation design. A confirmatory analytical technique, namely DSC, IR and X-ray diffractometery, were used to prove the physicochemical stability of the used drug and the absence of any chemical interaction with the matrix forming polymers used. In addition, the incorporation of EC resulted in the manufacture of tablets of sufficient hardness. It can, therefore, be concluded that EC is a good direct compression matrix forming polymer that increased the duration of diclofenac sodium 2.5 folds compared to the commercial product

HPLC Method Development for Quantification of Doxorubicin in Cell Culture and Placental Perfusion Media

Assessment of drug transport across the placenta is important in understanding the effect of drugs on placental and fetal health. These phenomena can be studied in both in vitro cell lines and ex vivo placental perfusions. We have successfully developed a sensitive yet simple high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method coupled with fluorescence detection to determine the concentration of doxorubicin (DXR) in cell culture media for transport studies in human trophoblast cells (BeWo, b30 clone) and in fetal media for placental perfusion experiments. The method was developed based on a protein precipitation technique and was validated in both media types for linearity, intra-day, and inter-day precision and accuracy. The relationship of peak area to concentration was linear with R2 values of 0.99 or greater obtained over the concentration range of 1.5 to 15,000 ng/mL. Despite the high concentrations of albumin in fetal perfusion media (30 mg/mL), the lower limits of detection and quantification for DXR were found to be 1.5 and 5 ng/mL, respectively. This analytical method may be used to study the transport of DXR across BeWo cells and human placenta during placental perfusion studies

Impact of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC)’s multidimensional approach on rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia in intensive care units in 22 hospitals of 14 cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

To analyze the impact of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) Multidimensional Approach (IMA) and use of INICC Surveillance Online System (ISOS) on ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) rates in Saudi Arabia from September 2013 to February 2017. A multicenter, prospective, before–after surveillance study on 14,961 patients in 37 intensive care units (ICUs) of 22 hospitals. During baseline, we performed outcome surveillance of VAP applying the definitions of the CDC/NHSN. During intervention, we implemented the IMA and the ISOS, which included: (1) a bundle of infection prevention practice interventions, (2) education, (3) outcome surveillance, (4) process surveillance, (5) feedback on VAP rates and consequences and (6) performance feedback of process surveillance. Bivariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed using generalized linear mixed models to estimate the effect of intervention. The baseline rate of 7.84 VAPs per 1000 mechanical-ventilator (MV)-days―with 20,927 MV-days and 164 VAPs―, was reduced to 4.74 VAPs per 1000 MV-days―with 118,929 MV-days and 771 VAPs―, accounting for a 39% rate reduction (IDR 0.61; 95% CI 0.5–0.7; P 0.001). Implementing the IMA was associated with significant reductions in VAP rates in ICUs of Saudi Arabia