Floating Drug Delivery System: A Brief Review

Scientific and technological developments in the research and development of new drug delivery systems have been made in recent years by resolving physiological disorders, such as short gastric residence periods and unpredictable gastric emptying times. Dosage forms that can be hold within the stomach are called as Gastro-retentive Dosage Forms (GRDF). Multiple methods used in the prolongation of gastric residence time are floating drug delivery system, swelling and expanding system, polymeric bio-adhesive system, high density system and other delayed gastric emptying system. Medication-based disease treatment is entering a new era in which a increasing range of innovative drug delivery technologies are being used and are available for clinical use. Floating Drug Delivery Systems (FDDS) is one of the gastro-retentive dosage forms used to achieve extended duration of gastric residency. The aim of writing this review on floating drug delivery systems (FDDS) was to compile the recent literature with particular focus on the main floating mechanism to achieve gastric retention. Sustained oral release of gastrointestinal dosage types provides many benefits for drugs with absorption from the upper sections of the gastrointestinal tract and those that function locally throughout the stomach. This review includes the physiology, factors controlling gastric retention time, excipient variables influencing gastric retention, approaches to designing single-unit, hydro-dynamically balanced system and multi-unit floating structure, and aspects of their classification, formulation and evaluation are discussed in detail, and few applications of these systems.