Isolation and Evaluation of Anacardium occidentale Gum as a Binding Agent in Tablet Formulations

Plant products serve as an alternative to synthetic products because of local accessibility, eco-friendly nature and lower prices compared to imported synthetic products. Natural gums and mucilage have been widely explored as pharmaceutical excipients. Mucilage extracted from Anacardium occidentale (Ao) were subjected to toxicity studies for its safety and preformulation studies for its suitability as a binding agent. The present study was undertaken with an objective to find out the binding potentials of a natural gum obtained from plant Anacardium occidentale. Physicochemical characteristics of mucilage, such as solubility, swelling index, loss on drying, and pH were studied and also microbial load was determined. The mucilage was evaluated for its granulating and binding properties in tablets, using Diclofenac as a model drug. Properties of the granules prepared with diclofenac using five different concentrations (2, 4, 6, 8 and 10% w/v) of Ao mucilage and compared with starch (10%, w/v), as standard binder. The prepared granules were evaluated for percentage of fines, average particle size, total porosity, compressibility index and flow properties. The tablets were prepared and evaluated for content uniformity, hardness, friability, disintegration time and in vitro dissolution profiles. The tablets had good physicochemical properties, and the drug release was more than 90% within 90 min. The tablets prepared by using 10% mucilage as binder exhibited more hardness than by using 2, 4 and 8% concentration. At 6% concentration it has given similar disintegration time and dissolution profile in comparison to starch at 10% w/v. Hence, Ao mucilage at 6% w/v concentrations can be considered as ideal concentrations for preparation of tablets.