Development of a new disintegration method for orally disintegrating tablets.

Recently, the focus has been on the importance of assessing the oral disintegrative properties of orally disintegrating tablets (ODTs). In particular, in the development stages and the quality control field of ODT products, a physical assessment method which easily measures oral disintegrative properties is desired. For this reason, we developed a new disintegration test method (Kyoto-model disintegration method or KYO method), which is useful to predict the oral disintegrative properties of an ODT easily, and examined the availability of the method. In the KYO method, ODT samples were classified in terms of their water permeability, and a moderate water volume was decided. Subsequently, the disintegrative properties were assessed with the newly proposed method. For 25 commercial prescription ODTs used as samples, a good correlation was shown between the results of a human sensory test by five healthy male volunteers and the results using the KYO method. Furthermore, the KYO method could evaluate time-dependent changes in ODT samples. On the other hand, no correlation was observed between the Japanese Pharmacopeia disintegration test and the human sensory test. These results suggested that the KYO method reflected the disintegration nature of the ODTs in the oral cavity, and could easily be applied to development stages and the quality control field of ODT products.