FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF SUSTAINED RELEASE TABLETS OF PENTOXIFYLLINE USING OKRA EXTRACT AS A NOVEL RETARDANT

摘要

Objectives: Okra ( Abelmoschus Esculentus ) is one of the world wide distributed plants used mostly as a food in most civilizations, its fruit characterized by sticky materials tears from it upon fruit cutting, this sticky material could be beneficial in matrix formation and sustained release tablets formulation. Methods: Fresh okra was collected and macerated in different extracting systems in variable ratios. The extracts were dried and collected. Selected extracts were granulated and compressed into tablets using the tablet machine. The formulated tablets were characterized in terms of hardness, friability disintegration and other gross findings, Extract from HCl and NaoH (OE 7 and8) were selected to prepare SR tablet of pentoxifylline (PTX); the same tests were performed in addition to measure the rate of PTX release from the tablet over ten hours. Results: Results obtained shows a promising retardation polymer as the tablets has an elegant shape and texture without chips or cracks, and not friable (F HCl 1loses 0.03 % of its weight after friability testing), tablet strength is acceptable since tablets resist breaking strength more than 200 Newtons, in addition, time needed for tablet disintegration about 175 minutes as found in F NaoH 3. Fortunately, the prepared tablets show a slow release of PTX following zero order kinetic (90 % released in eight hours in a constant rate about 10% per hour). Conclusions : These results show the emerging of novel retardant for SR preparation obtained from natural plant okra. Keywords: Plant extract, Okra, Abelmoschus esculentus , Sustained Release, Pentoxifylline, CMC.