In vitro and in vivo Evaluation of Ibuprofen Nanosuspensions for Enhanced Oral Bioavailability

The Bioavailability of Drugs-The Current State of Knowledge

Drug bioavailability is a crucial aspect of pharmacology, affecting the effectiveness of drug therapy. Understanding how drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and eliminated in patients' bodies is essential to ensure proper and safe treatment. This publication aims to highlight the relevance of drug bioavailability research and its importance in therapy. In addition to biochemical activity, bioavailability also plays a critical role in achieving the desired therapeutic effects. This may seem obvious, but it is worth noting that a drug can only produce the expected effect if the proper level of concentration can be achieved at the desired point in a patient's body. Given the differences between patients, drug dosages, and administration forms, understanding and controlling bioavailability has become a priority in pharmacology. This publication discusses the basic concepts of bioavailability and the factors affecting it. We also looked at various methods of assessing bioavailability, both in the laboratory and in the clinic. Notably, the introduction of new technologies and tools in this field is vital to achieve advances in drug bioavailability research. This publication also discusses cases of drugs with poorly described bioavailability, providing a deeper understanding of the complex challenges they pose to medical researchers and practitioners. Simultaneously, the article focuses on the perspectives and trends that may shape the future of research regarding bioavailability, which is crucial to the development of modern pharmacology and drug therapy. In this context, the publication offers an essential, meaningful contribution toward understanding and highlighting bioavailability's role in reliable patient treatment. The text also identifies areas that require further research and exploration.

Characterizing interspecies differences in gastric fluid properties to improve understanding of in vivo oral drug formulation performance

An in-depth understanding of the properties of gastric fluid(s) prior to an in vivo pharmacokinetic investigation can vastly improve predictions of in vivo performance. Previously, properties of animal and human gastric fluids have been characterized with varying methods. Unfortunately, characterization has often not been thorough, and some properties, such as density and viscosity, have not been reported. Here, human, porcine and canine gastric fluids were harvested and characterized for pH, viscosity, surface tension, density, and osmolarity. We found that the variability of pH and surface tension between dogs was significantly higher than the variability between pigs, and, furthermore, gastric fluids collected from the same canine species (beagles) housed in two different countries (Denmark and China) had surprisingly different pH values. Next, an in vitro dissolution study in diluted gastric fluids from each species was performed using minitablets containing ibuprofen. Human gastric fluids and porcine gastric fluids showed similar dissolution profiles and corroborated well with biorelevant human Fasted State Simulated Gastric Fluid (FaSSGF). In contrast, differences in canine gastric fluids caused highly variable dissolution results. We systematically compared our findings to those in the literature and based on this evaluation, propose obtaining aspirates from the animals used for in vivo studies to ensure knowledge on the fluid properties affecting the performance of the formulated drug in question.

Nanosizing Coamorphous Drugs Using Top-Down Approach: The Effect of Particle Size Reduction on Dissolution Improvement

Nanotechnology and coamorphous are both advanced technologies that can effectively improve the solubility of drugs. This study has been the first attempt to combine these two approaches to construct the coamorphous nanoparticles to improve the dissolution and investigated the effect of physical properties of coamorphous solid on the nanosizing process. Two types of coamorphous solid, i.e., curcumin-artemisinin and quercetin-lysine, were selected as models. Coamorphous curcumin-artemisinin could highly contribute to the size reduction during milling compared to the crystalline form, which might attribute to the change of crystallinity. Nanosized coamorphous curcumin-artemisinin showed higher dissolution than nanocrystals and single coamorphous sample. However, quercetin-lysine coamorphous nanoparticles did not reflect significant dissolution improvement compared with the microsized sample. The difference of initial dissolutions for both could be the main reason. The directly mixing and drying method was confirmed to be an effective and simple approach to maintain the dissolution of nanosized coamorphous sample.

Do Polymeric Nanoparticles Really Enhance the Bioavailability of Oral Drugs? A Quantitative Answer Using Meta-Analysis

The oral route remains one of the most popular and important routes of administration for drugs—one that warrants the development of advanced drug delivery systems, such as polymeric nanoparticles capable of enhancing the absorption and bioavailability of the used drugs. In this work, a systematic review of published works on several databases, followed by a meta-analysis, were utilized in order to navigate the published studies and access literature-based evidence about the capability of polymeric nanoparticulate systems to augment the absorption and bioavailability of orally administered drugs. The pharmacokinetic parameter of the area under the curve (AUC) was utilized as the “effect” of this meta-analytical study. The meta-analysis demonstrated a significant increase in AUC compared to conventional formulations. Furthermore, comparing the synthetic polymeric nanoparticles, versus their naturally-based administered counterparts, as subgroups of the meta-analysis, revealed no significant differences.