A Study on Flow Properties of Semisolid Dosage Forms

There are a wide variety of semi-solid ointments used for healing the skin diseases, whose therapeutic and skin penetration abililties may greatly differ from one another depending on the compositions of ointment vehicles. A computer optimization technique was applied to obtain the optimum formula of o/w type ointment giving the in vitro maximum absorption rate through hairless rat skin membrane. Some of the formulations were selected to find out a relationship between skin penetration of ointment and its Theological characteristics. The experimental value of absorption rate obtained from the ointment by optimum formula agreed well with the theoretical value obtained from a polynomial regression analysis, Three kinds of ointments selected among 15 formulations were obtained with a concentric cylinder type rheometer (Model; Rheolab SM-HM Physica, Germany) at 20, 30, 40 and $50^{\circ}C$ for rheograms of rhelolgical properties of o/w type ointments. As the temperature was raised, all products showed a decrease in both shear stress and yield values. The higher skin penetration, the lower shear stress showed.