Gastric Retentive Dosage Forms: A Review

Gastric retentive dosage forms have been investigated to provide controlled release therapy for drugs with reduced absorption in the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract or for local treatment of diseases of the stomach or upper GI tract. Gastric retentive dosage forms rely on either natural GI physiology, such as floating or large tablets that depend on delayed emptying from the fed stomach, or those dosage forms that are designed to fight the physiology and avoid emptying in the fasted state through dosage forms of even larger sizes with or without flotation or bioadhesion. To understand the behavior of the dosage forms, an introduction to GI motility and its measurement is provided. Because the fed mode underlies the successful development of dosage forms that rely on size or flotation, the emptying of these dosage forms in the fed mode and identification of the key factors influencing the variability of gastric retention are discussed. The design and limitations of size or density-based fed mode, and mucoadhesive and expandable fasting-state gastric retentive systems are presented.