Floating Drug Delivery Systems: a Novel Approach

During the past few decades, numerous oral drug delivery systems have been developed to act as drug reservoirs from which the active substance can be released over a specific period of time at a predetermined and controlled rate. It is evident from the recent scientific and patent literatures that an increased interest in novel oral controlled release dosage forms that designed to be retained in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) for a prolonged and predictable period of time exists today. Several approaches are currently utilized in the prolongation of the gastric residence times (GRT), including floating drug delivery systems (FDDS), lowdensity systems, raft systems incorporating alginate gels, bioadhesive or mucoadhesive systems, high-density systems, superporous hydrogels and magnetic systems. The current review focuses briefly about the FDDS that is one of the most leading methodologies in gastroretentive drug formulations.