Formulation and In Vitro Evaluation of Floating Matrix Tablets of Ofloxacin

The present study concerns the development of floating tablets of ofloxacin which were designed to prolong the gastric residence time after oral administration. Ofloxacin is a fluoroquinolone antibacterial agent which is highly effective against gram positive and gram negative bacteria. Ofloxacin floating tablets were prepared by wet granulation method incorporating natural polymer like guar gum, locust bean gum, either alone or in combination with HPMC K100M as swelling polymers, with sodium bicarbonate as gas generating agent and were evaluated for parameters such as Weight variation, Hardness, Friability, Drug content, Swelling index, in vitro buoyancy study, in vitro drug release study. All the formulation showed compliance with pharmacopieal standards. Based on the evaluation results, F3 and F6 formulations were selected as the best formulations and were checked for stability as per ICH guidelines. These results indicated that the selected formulations were stable. The drug release profile of the best formulations was well controlled and uniform throughout the dissolution studies. The drug release of optimized formulation follows the Higuchi kinetic model, and the mechanism is found to be non-Fickian/anomalous according to Korsmeyer-Peppas equation.