Floating Drug Delivery Systems: A Novel Approach towards Gastroretentive Drug Delivery Systems

Recent technological advancements have been made in controlled oral drug delivery systems by overcoming physiological difficulties, such as short gastric residence time and highly variable gastric emptying time. Several technical approaches are currently utilized in the prolongation of gastric residence time, including high density, swelling and expanding, polymeric mucoadhesive, ion-exchange, raft forming, magnetic and floating drug delivery systems, as well as other delayed gastric emptying devices. The purpose of this review on floating drug delivery systems (FDDS) was to compile the recent literature with special focus on the principal mechanism of floatation to achieve gastric retention. In this review, the current technological developments of FDDS including patented delivery systems and marketed products, and their advantages and disadvantages. The review also aims to discuss various parameters affecting the behavior of floating and swelling multiparticulate in oral dosage form summarizes the in vitro techniques, in vivo studies to evaluate the performance and application of floating and swellable systems, and applications of these systems. These systems are useful to several problems encountered during the development of a pharmaceutical dosage form.