Determination of tablet coating distribution by deconvolution of uncoated and coated tablet weight distributions.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this research is to obtain the tablet coating distribution from weight distributions of uncoated and coated tablets.


METHODS
The method of deconvolution with digital smoothing was used to calculate the distribution of coating applied to a tablet population from separate random measurements of individual uncoated and coated tablets.


RESULTS
It was demonstrated that the calculated coating weight distribution agrees well with the measured distribution. The effect of the smoothing factor on the solution is illustrated.


CONCLUSIONS
This method can be used during development to facilitate process scale-up/optimization. In routine production, the method can assess the reproducibility and consistency of a coating process.
Zhou
J
J
Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, Illinois 60064-4000, USA.
Williams
T
T
Swopes
H
H
Hale
T
T
D002626:Chemistry, Pharmaceutical / Q000379:methods*; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013608:Tablets, Enteric-Coated / Q000737:chemistry*
D013608:Tablets, Enteric-Coated