Abstract

Objective: The aim of present research work was to develop a herbal fast disintegrating tablet containing Fagonia schweinfurthii Hadidi dried extract and determining its antihistaminic activity using guinea pig ileum.

Method: The tablets were formulated by wet granulation technique using three different superdisintegrants (croscarmillose, crospovidone and sodium starch glycolate) at three different levels. The tablets were evaluated for various physical properties like hardness, friability weight variation etc. and various mechanical properties like disintegration time, wetting time to select the best superdisintegrant. The selected superdisintegrant was further used as intra as well as extra granulating agent to develop fast disintegrating tablets of Fagonia schweinfurthii Hadidi dried extract. The optimized formulation was subjected to stability study as per the ICH guidelines. Finally, Ex-vivo antihistaminic study was conducted on guinea pig ileum for optimized formulation and compared with marketed tablet containing cetrizine HCl as API (Stanhist-10, Ranbaxy, Pvt. Ltd).

Results: Physical properties of all tablet batches were found to be acceptable and comply with various official specifications. The disintegration time and wetting time of optimized formulation (F’3) were found to be 1.15±0.08 and 0.56±0.04 min respectively. Results of Ex-vivo study showed a comparable histamine inhibition between optimized tablet (15%) and marketed tablet formulation (18.8%) in a dose of 5 µg/ml.

Conclusion: On the basis of in-vitro and Ex-vivo studies, it was concluded that prepared herbal fast disintegrating tablets were stable and had potent antihistaminic activity.

Keywords: Antihistaminic activity, croscarmillose, fast disintegrating tablets, herbal formulation, Fagonia species, friability weight variation.

Graphical Abstract