Homogeneous Heat Transfer During Freeze-Drying Using Cyclic Olefin Polymer Vials

In pharmaceutical freeze-drying processes, batch homogeneity is an important quality attribute. In this context, the edge-vial-effect is a challenging phenomenon. Shortly, this effect describes that vials at the edges of the shelf dry faster and at a higher temperature compared to vials in the middle of the shelf. Studies by Ehlers et al. revealed that this effect mainly origins from the number of neighbor vials cooling each other, which is reduced for vials in corners and edges compared to vials in the middle. Due to the reduced heat transfer in cyclic olefin polymer (COP) vials, the adverse edge-vial-effect should be greatly reduced allowing a better batch uniformity. In this focused study, glass and COP vials are compared regarding this effect on a fully loaded shelf. A reference experiment with vials placed at distance using a specially designed frame is presented as well

The influence of artificial saliva on the cleaning force of interdental rubber picks: an in-vitro comparison

Results Using AS leaded to significant lower values for ECF than without (1.04 ± 0.66 N versus 1.97 ± 1.01 N, p < 0.001). In general, a lower ECF was recorded for convex IDR compared to isosceles triangle and concave morphologies (p < 0.001) as well as for gap sizes of 1.3 mm compared to the smaller sizes (p < 0.001). For SPA+ we found significantly higher force values than for SPA (1.67 ± 0.93 N versus 1.31 ± 0.97 N, p < 0.001) independent of the use of AS. Conclusion Within the study´s in-vitro limitations, we found AS reduced ECF of IRPs by half and allowed using larger diameters interdentally, which could be associated with (1) a higher cleaning effectiveness and (2) a higher acceptance e.g. of patients with dry mouth. This has to be confirmed by further clinical investigations