Mora-Castaño Gloria, Millán-Jiménez Mónica, Linares Vicente, Caraballo Isidoro
Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universidad de Sevilla, 41012 Seville, Spain.
Pharmaceutics. 2022 Apr 15;14(4):871. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics14040871.
Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology enables the design of new drug delivery systems for personalised medicine. Polymers that can be molten are needed to obtain extruded filaments for Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), one of the most frequently employed techniques for 3D printing. The aim of this work was to evaluate the extrusion process and the physical appearance of filaments made of a hydrophilic polymer and a non-molten model drug. Metformin was used as model drug and Affinisol™ 15LV as the main carrier. Drug-loaded filaments were obtained by using a single-screw extruder and, subsequently, their printability was tested. Blends containing up to a 60% and 50% drug load with 5% and 7.5% of auxiliary excipients, respectively, were successfully extruded. Between the obtained filaments, those containing up to 50% of the drug were suitable for use in FDM 3D printing. The studied parameters, including residence time, flow speed, brittleness, and fractal dimension, reflect a critical point in the extrusion process at between 30-40% drug load. This finding could be essential for understanding the behaviour of filaments containing a non-molten component.
三维（3D）打印技术有助于设计用于个性化医疗的新型药物递送系统。为了通过熔融沉积建模（FDM）获得挤出长丝，需要可熔融的聚合物，FDM是3D打印最常用的技术之一。这项工作的目的是评估由亲水性聚合物和非熔融模型药物制成的长丝的挤出过程和物理外观。使用二甲双胍作为模型药物，Affinisol™15LV作为主要载体。通过单螺杆挤出机获得载药长丝，随后测试其可打印性。分别含有高达60%和50%药物负载量以及5%和7.5%辅助赋形剂的共混物成功挤出。在所获得的长丝中，那些含有高达50%药物的长丝适用于FDM 3D打印。所研究的参数，包括停留时间、流速、脆性和分形维数，反映了药物负载量在30%-40%之间时挤出过程中的一个临界点。这一发现对于理解含有非熔融成分的长丝的行为可能至关重要。
