An Overview on Various Approaches for Gastroretentive Drug Delivery Systems

In recent years scientific and technological advancements have been made in the research and development of controlled release oral drug delivery systems by overcoming physiological adversities like short gastric residence times and unpredictable gastric emptying times. To overcome these limitations, gastroretentive drug delivery systems (GRDDS), have been developed to increase gastric residence of drug delivery systems in the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract. GRDDS can improve the controlled delivery of drugs that have an absorption window by continuously releasing the drug for a prolonged period of time before it reaches its absorption site, thus ensuring its optimal bioavailability. This article provides the classification of gastroretentive systems, formulation considerations for developing gastroretentive systems, factors affecting gastroretentive systems such as density, size, shape, single or multiple unit formulations, fed or unfed state, nature of meal, caloric content, frequency of feed, gender, age, posture, concomitant drug administration and biological factors limelight this article.