A new drug delivery system using plasma-irradiated pharmaceutical aids. VI. Controlled release of theophylline from plasma-irradiated double-compressed tablet composed of water-soluble polymers as a wall material.

The rapid drug release from a double-compressed tablet containing theophylline with the water-soluble polymer polymethacrylic acid (PMAA) or polyacrylamide (PAAm) used as a wall material can be suppressed by argon plasma irradiation and changed into the slow release due to a decrease in the solubility of water-soluble polymers used as the outer layer. This report is the first to deal with an attempt to control the release of drugs by controlling polymer solubility, and to fabricate a completely soluble controlled release type of drug delivery system (DDS) making use of plasma processing.

A new drug delivery system (DDS) development using plasma-irradiated pharmaceutical aids. IV. Controlled release of theophylline from plasma-irradiated double-compressed tablet composed of polycarbonate as a single wall material.

A controlled-release tablet can be obtained by oxygen plasma irradiation on the outer layer double-compressed tablets prepared from theophylline as a core material and polycarbonate derived from bisphenol A (PC) as a single wall material, making this possible that PC is of intramolecular bifunctionality, crosslinkable phenyl group and degradable carbonate group as an effect of plasma irradiation. It was shown that the dissolution profiles can be varied so as to cause release of theophylline at different rates, depending on the set of conditions chosen for tablet manufacturing as well as plasma operational conditions.