Abstract
4-Aminopyridine (AP) is a potassium channel blocker used in the treatment of neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer disease. AP‘s window of therapeutic effect appears to correlate with its plasma halflife (3.5 hours). It demonstrates pH-dependent solubility because of a weakly basic drug. In addition, the resulting release from conventional matrix tablets decreases with increasing pH-milieu of the gastrointestinal tract. The aim of this study is to design sustained release matrix tablet containing AP, overcoming this problem. $Eudragit^{\circledR}$ L 100 (EuL) and sodium alginate were used in an effort to achieve pH independent drug release. The effect of sodium alginate and EuL on drug release from matrix tablet was investigated. The drug release behavior from the different tablets was analyzed by $t_{20%},\;t_{40%},\;t_{60%}$, The exponential diffusion coefficient n, kinetic constant K were calculated according to the Korsmeyer-Peppas equation. The drug release from matrix tablets prepared with sodium alginate was decreased with increasing the content of sodium alginate in pH 7.4 while there is no significant difference in pH 1.2. The exponent n values were determined to be approximately 0.5 and 0.8 respectively, in both pH 1.2 and 7.4. These values indicate diffusion-based anomalous mechanism and erosion-based anomalous mechanism, respectively. The drug release from sodium alginate matrix tablets prepared with solid dispersion of EuL containing drug showed a slow drug release in an acidic medium and a more fast drug release in phosphate medium, compared with sodium alginate matrix tablets prepared with physical mixture. These results may be attributed to the gel forming ability of sodium alginate and pH dependent solubility of EuL. Therefore, sustained-release AP matrix tablets using sodium alginate and EuL were successfully prepared.
