Formulation and Evaluation of Mouth Dissolving Tablet of Zolpidem Tartrate

Conventional solid dosage form suffers from problem like difficulty in swallowing with age, onset of action and physiological factor of patient like gastric emptying time. To overcome this mouth dissolving tablet is a newer approach to drug delivery. Zolpidem is preferentially used for the short term treatment of insomnia. The aim of present study is to formulate and evaluate mouth dissolving tablets of Zolpidem tartrate to improve bioavailability and circumvent the first pass effect. The tablet of Zolpidem was prepared by directing compression method using croscarmellose sodium, sodium starch glycolate as super disintegrant and mannitol, microcrystalline cellulose, dicalcium phosphate as diluents. The effects of different super disintegrants and diluents on disintegration and dissolution time were optimized and on the basis of these parameters, formula was finalized. FTIR study showed compatibility between drug and excipients. The pre-compression study indicated the excellent flow properties of bulk powder which is within an acceptable range of pharmacopoeia specifications. The post compression evaluation parameters results match the expected criteria. From the entire formulations, best in-vitro drug release profile was obtained with the system containing sodium starch glycolate (35mg), mannitol (20mg) and microcrystalline cellulose (60mg). These tablets have a hardness less than 4 kg/cm2, disintegration time of 24 seconds and 97.71% drug release within 30 minutes.