TY - JOUR
T1 - Microstructural insight into inhalation powder blends through correlative multi-scale X-ray Computed Tomography
AU - Gajjar, Parmesh
AU - Styliari, Ioanna Danai
AU - Legh-Land, Victoria
AU - Bale, Hrishikesh
AU - Tordoff, Benjamin
AU - Withers, Philip
AU - Murnane, Darragh
PY - 2023/8/30
Y1 - 2023/8/30
N2 - Dry powder inhalers (DPI) are important for topical drug delivery to the lungs, but characterising the pre-aerosolised powder microstructure is a key initial step in understanding the post-aerosolised blend performance. In this work, we characterise the pre-aerosolised 3D microstructure of an inhalation blend using correlative multi-scale X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT), identifying lactose and drug-rich phases at multiple length scales on the same sample. The drug-rich phase distribution across the sample is shown to be homogeneous on a bulk scale but heterogeneous on a particulate scale, with individual clusters containing different amounts of drug-rich phase, and different parts of a carrier particle coated with different amounts of drug-rich phase. Simple scalings of the drug-rich phase thickness with carrier particle size are used to derive the drug-proportion to carrier particle size relationship. This work opens news doors to micro-structural assessment of inhalation powders that could be invaluable for bioequivalence assessment of dry powder inhalers.
AB - Dry powder inhalers (DPI) are important for topical drug delivery to the lungs, but characterising the pre-aerosolised powder microstructure is a key initial step in understanding the post-aerosolised blend performance. In this work, we characterise the pre-aerosolised 3D microstructure of an inhalation blend using correlative multi-scale X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT), identifying lactose and drug-rich phases at multiple length scales on the same sample. The drug-rich phase distribution across the sample is shown to be homogeneous on a bulk scale but heterogeneous on a particulate scale, with individual clusters containing different amounts of drug-rich phase, and different parts of a carrier particle coated with different amounts of drug-rich phase. Simple scalings of the drug-rich phase thickness with carrier particle size are used to derive the drug-proportion to carrier particle size relationship. This work opens news doors to micro-structural assessment of inhalation powders that could be invaluable for bioequivalence assessment of dry powder inhalers.
KW - Health and Wellbeing
KW - Pharmaceutics
KW - Inhaled drug delivery
KW - X-ray computed Tomography
KW - Correlative Tomography
KW - Microstructure
KW - Powder
U2 - 10.1016/j.ejpb.2023.08.016
DO - 10.1016/j.ejpb.2023.08.016
M3 - Article
SN - 0939-6411
JO - European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics
JF - European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics
ER -