COLOCASIA ESCULENTA STARCH: NOVEL ALTERNATIVE DISINTEGRANT FOR PHARMACEUTICAL APPLICATION

Oral drug delivery system has always been the most prevalent route of administration and continuous efforts are made to improve the drug delivery by this route. Tablets are one of the most extensively used dosage forms and various excipients have been developed for their formulation. The purpose of the current research work was to isolate and study the physicochemical properties of the Colocasia esculenta starch and further compare its disintegration ability with maize starch. Starch was isolated from C. esculenta corms by aqueous extraction method and possesses characteristics that are typical of starches. It was further evaluated for the presence of other foreign matter and phytoconstituents. Results showed that the isolated sample was free from foreign organic matter and the total ash value was found to be 0.4%. Tablets were prepared by the wet granulation method by varying concentrations in the range of 2.5 to 10% w/w for both the starches. Pre and post-compression parameters were studied and were found to be within the pharmacopoeial limits. Disintegration tests showed that disintegration time decreases with increasing concentration of both the starches. At 10% w/w concentration, disintegration time was found to be lowest, hence it was selected as an optimized formulation Stability studies were performed on F4 batch and it was found to be stable. The determination of disintegration efficiency indicates that C. esculenta starch exhibits disintegrating potential.