An Updated Review of Dissolution Apparatus for Conventional and Novel Dosage Forms

Dissolution testing of the drug formulation introduced in 1960 since then the importance of dissolution test has grown rapidly as have the number of tests and demands in quality control laboratories. Dissolution testing is an official test used by pharmacopeias for evaluating drug release of solid and semisolid dosage forms. The main applications of the dissolution testing include biopharmaceutical characterization of the drug product, as a tool to ensure consistent product quality and to predict in vivo drug bioavailability. Dissolution testing was developed initially for solid orals, later on its use is widened to a variety of novel dosage forms. Due to the complexities in the drug delivery of novel dosage forms there is a need in developing modified dissolution testing methods in order to characterize the invitro release of these dosage forms. Over the last three decades the dissolution test has come a long way and has evolved into a powerful tool for characterizing drug products and their in vivo performance. This review attempts to emphasize the most important developments in the field. The article represents the current updates in dissolution testing methods for conventional and novel pharmaceutical dosage forms and gives an insight to possible alternatives in drug dissolution testing design. The aim of this review is to represent all the potential standardized test methods which are needed to characterize the dissolution properties of a wide variety of dosage forms ranging from conventional to novel delivery.