Abstract

The delivery of therapeutic agents through the oral route remains the most favorable one as compared to other routes of drug administration. However, numerous disadvantages are encountered in conventional formulations such as low bioavailability, first-pass metabolism, gastric irritation, delayed onset of action, bitter taste, low retention time, frequent dosing, and non-localized drug targeting. All these problems encountered guide the various pharmaceutical industries to manufacture and develop a novel solid oral dosage form called lozenges. Lozenges are solid oral dosage forms of medicament, meant to be dissolved within the mouth or pharynx. They may consist of one or more than one medicinal agent in a sweetened and flavored base material.

The present review is focused on various types, compositions, and methodologies used to prepare the medicated lozenges and on different evaluation parameters that establish their safety and efficacy. It also put a light on different commercially available and reported medicated lozenges formulation.

The various review and research articles reported by different researchers were studied extensively by using the databases of Google Scholar, Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science and various commercial websites that were also investigated for information regarding new products.

Lozenges provide various advantages in terms of patient compliance, rapid onset of action, prolonged retention time, enhancement of bioavailability, ease of manufacturing, localized drug targeting, sustained or controlled effect, and reduced dosing frequency. They also have the ability to incorporate the drugs belonging to different therapeutic classes for treating various disorders related to oral cavities like gingivitis, dental plaque, mouth ulcers, throat pain, oral thrush, throat infection, periodontitis, and pharyngitis. However, its applicability is not only limited to localized action, but it has also been employed to deliver the drug systemically for the conditions such as cough, decongestion, runny nose, nausea, vomiting, allergy, low immunity, fever, body ache, the killing of worms and smoking cessation.

It was concluded that they have played an important role in the field of drug delivery and will continue to perform in the same way in the future as well.

Keywords: Drug delivery, medicated lozenges, marketed formulations, manufacturing of lozenges, recent developments.

Graphical Abstract