Abstract

Diluents, also known as fillers, are used to make up the required bulk when the drug dosage is inadequate to produce the bulk of the tablet. In the present study the effect of diluents such as Lactose, Starch and microcrystalline cellulose on the evaluation parameters of curcumin-Hydroxyl Propyl β Cyclodextrin (HPβCD) bioadhesive vaginal tablets containing Carbopol 934P, Hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) and Hydroxy ethyl cellulose (HEC) as bioadhesive polymers was investigated. Curcumin tablets were prepared by direct compression method and evaluated for average thickness, hardness, friability, drug content, % swelling, drug release and mucoadhesion. The FT-IR and DSC spectra revealed that there was no chemical interaction between curcumin HPβCD and diluents used. The release was observed to follow both first order kinetics and fickian diffusion. The results obtained suggest that the diluents used have significant effect on % swelling, in vitro release and mucoadhesion. From the study it was observed that using lactose or microcrystalline cellulose in the formulations resulted in faster drug release profiles when compare to starch. And lactose is the best suitable diluent for curcumin-HPβCD bioadhesive vaginal tablets.

Keywords: Curcumin, cyclodextrin, diluents, drug release, vaginal tablets.