Robles Martinez, Pamela; (2019) Pharmaceutical applications of stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Abstract

3D printing is a technology that fabricates objects by consecutively placing layers of material based on an electronic design and, due to its ability to manufacture personalised objects on demand, it is rapidly growing in plenty of different areas including healthcare. Various technologies have been explored in Pharmaceutics, amongst these, stereolithography (SLA) offers the possibility to fabricate crosslinked polymeric matrices (via photopolymerisation) with a superior resolution while avoiding the need to use high temperatures. In this work SLA was used to produce dosage forms for Oral Controlled Release (OCR). First, the fabrication of drug-loaded hydrogels containing variable water content produced using two different photoinitiators (Diphenyl (2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl) phosphine oxide and the water-soluble riboflavin–triethanolamine) was evaluated. SLA was successful in producing hydrogels; dissolution tests results showed that water content of up to 30% does not significantly change drug release rates, whereas the photoinitiator used does. Secondly, SLA was used to investigate the influence of geometry on drug release; complex shaped-tablets (cylinder, sphere, cube, pyramid, torus and multi-tori) were printed and the surface area to volume ratio (SA/V) was identified as a key factor determining drug release kinetics, as it increased so did the rate of drug release. Finally, the use of SLA for producing multi-layered polypills was tested. The method developed allowed the fabrication of polypills containing six model drugs for the first time. Modification of drug release was also possible by varying drug content, geometry and the inclusion of a diluent. Raman imaging showed the distribution of the drugs and dissolution tests exhibited different release kinetics for each formulation. SLA proved to be suitable to fabricate OCR dosage forms, it also showed to be flexible for incorporating multiple drugs and for easy modification of drug release, making it a potential pharmaceutical manufacturing method for medicine personalisation.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item