Orodispersible Films: A Systematic Patent Review.
BACKGROUND
Nowadays, Oral Film Technology (OFT) has gained much attention among all the oral drug delivery systems. Fast dissolving film, fast disintegrating film, and orodispersible film are some synonymous words for this dosage form. Without a need of liquid for administration, this dosage form dissolves in the mouth. Typically, fast dissolving film dissolves from 1 to 30 seconds.


OBJECTIVE
At the root of its originality, many researchers patented their work on the aspect of orodispersible films using different drugs, polymers, excipients and employing various methods of preparation. The review focuses on details related to orodispersible films and their patents from 1979-2017, collected from various sources like USPTO, Google patent, Espacenet, Intellectual Property India.


RESULTS
For the ease of discussion, collected patents are segregated on the basis of drugs, polymers, and method of preparation. It was found that many researchers are shifting towards fast dissolving films for better patient compliance, extended efficacy, high bioavailability, fast dissolution, and disintegration. With the help of polymers blend suitable for the drug release and improved method of preparation various parameters like tensile strength, thickness, and pH etc. can be controlled.


CONCLUSION
It was observed that judicial selection of polymers and polymers blends and methods of preparation are key parameters in the formulation of orodispersible film.
Orodispersible films: conception to quality by design.
Orodispersible films (ODFs) are ultra-thin, stamp-sized, elegant, portable and patient-centric pharmaceutical dosage forms that do not need water to be ingested. They are particularly useful for paediatric and geriatric patient populations with special needs such as dysphagia, Parkinson's disease, and oral cancer. Accordingly, they hold tremendous potential in gaining patient compliance, convenience and pharmacotherapy. In the present review, conception and evolution of ODFs as a product and its technology are discussed. The review continues by providing overview about the potential of ODFs as carriers for delivering drugs, herbal extracts, probiotics and vaccines. Besides, strategies employed in drug cargo loading, taste masking of bitter drugs and enhancing drug stability are discussed. Finally, the review concludes by providing a brief overview about quality by design (QbD) principles in development of ODFs.
Saliva between normal and pathological. Important factors in determining systemic and oral health
There is a tendency in current medical research to explore the importance and symptomatology of saliva. The question to which increasingly more researchers from the medico-legal, systemic and dental fields tried to answer and bring together arguments for a greater emphasis is referring to the role of saliva in the health of the patient. Up until our time, people have looked at the importance of saliva from another perspective: saliva helped in pasting envelopes or stamps, or mostly in reported cases of public speakers faced with the impossibility of having a coherent speech due to sensations of dry mouth. This ‘dry mouth’ condition, named xerostomia in medical terms, has been used since antiquity as a test in detecting lies, knowing since then that the inhibition of emotional salivary glands, the feeling of ‘dry mouth’ is caused by anxiety, thus being a potential incrimination. Although hundreds of publications have insisted on the etiology and complications of the salivary gland hypofunction, only a few health professionals used to harvest saliva tests. As in the case of urine and blood, saliva quality and quantity are affected by a multitude of medical conditions and treatments, as well as the patient's psychological state. A review of the formation, function and dysfunction of salivary glands may convey the significant role played by saliva in health and disease, especially in detection and recognition of salivary gland hypofunction, systemic disease, and the psychological states, and thus prevent complications caused by these conditions.