The effect of excipients on the release kinetics of diclofenac sodium and papaverine hydrochloride from composed tablets.

For increased analgesic effect, new composed tablets containing diclofenac sodium (DIC) with an addition of papaverine hydrochloride (PAP) were prepared to investigate the mechanism of release of the active substances from tablets with different excipients in eight different formulations. To detect the possible interactions between active substances and excipients differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used. A shift of the melting point and enthalpy values of the physical mixtures of tablets components suggested a kind of interaction between components in certain formulations, however, the tabletting process was not disturbed in any of them. Kinetics of drug release from formulations was estimated by zero order, first order and Higuchi and Korsmeyer-Peppas models using results of dissolution of DIC and PAP from tablets. The study revealed that the mechanism of release of active substances was dependent on the excipients contained in tablets and the best fitted kinetics models were obtained for formulations with potentially prolonged release of DIC and PAP.