Browsing by Author "Mertanen, Sini"

For pediatric patients, it is often necessary to resort to off-label use of available commercial products. This may require manual modification of the preparations, which may result in reduced dose accuracy. In the past, there have been discussions about the potential of 3D printing technologies for on-demand manufacturing of medicines in hospitals. Printing technologies can be used to tailor medicines to the individual needs of patients. This could be a possible solution to the lack of commercial products for pediatric patients, for example. Semi-solid extrusion is a printing technique that could potentially be used in the future in hospitals. This study aims to design the simplest possible excipient composition for a printing material for semi-solid extruded preparations for pediatric patients. The finished products will be examined to determine the type of products achieved with this printing method and excipient composition. In addition, the suitability of semi-solid extrusion in a hospital environment will be observed and evaluated. Printing was performed with a pneumatic bioprinter. The desired formulations could not be prepared with a printing material containing only a gel former (poloxamer 407) and a solvent (water). Therefore, a filler (microcrystalline cellulose) was added to the printing material to improve the mechanical strength of the preparations. The model drug used in the study was warfarin sodium and the target strengths of the preparations were 0.1 mg, 0.5 mg and 1.0 mg. The preparations were dried at room temperature for 22-23 hours. The tablets produced in the study were small (diameter less than 7 mm, height less than 2 mm) grid-structured preparations. The method was successful in producing tablets of uniform mass. For all strengths, the tablets passed the European Pharmacopoeia test for uniformity of content of single-dose preparations. Only the 0.5 mg strengths passed the test of uniformity of dosage units. The excipient composition should still be optimized to improve the mechanical strength of the products. The overall preparation time of the formulations should be reduced, for example by shortening the drying time, to make semi-solid extrusion suitable for extemporaneus preparations in hospitals.