Investigating Intra-Tablet Coating Uniformity With Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography.
Spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) has recently attracted a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry as a fast and non-destructive modality for direct quantification of thin film coatings that cannot easily be resolved with other techniques. While previous studies with SD-OCT have estimated the intra-tablet coating uniformity, the estimates were based on limited number of B-scans. In order to obtain a more accurate estimate, a greater number of B-scans are required that can quickly lead to an overwhelming amount of data. To better manage the data so as to generate a more accurate representation of the intra-tablet coating uniformity without compromising on the achievable axial resolution and imaging depth, we comprehensively examine an algebraic reconstruction technique with OCT to significantly reduce the data required. Specifically, a set of coated pharmaceutical tablets with film coating thickness in the range of 60-100 μm is investigated. Results obtained from performing the reconstruction reveal that only 30% of the acquired data are actually required leading to a faster convergence time and a generally good agreement with benchmark data against the intra-tablet coating uniformity measured with terahertz pulsed imaging technology.
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK.
Yue
Y
Dong
Department of Engineering, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK.
Hungyen
H
Lin
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Shahrood, Shahrood 3619995161, Iran.
Vahid
V
Abolghasemi
Department of Electronic and Computing Engineering, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK.
Lu
L
Gan
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3RA, UK.
J Axel
JA
Zeitler
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool L69 3GJ, UK. Electronic address: y.c.shen@liverpool.ac.uk.
Yao-Chun
YC
Shen
D004339:Drug Compounding; D004867:Equipment Design; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013608:Tablets, Enteric-Coated / Q000737:chemistry*; D055069:Terahertz Imaging; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*
D013608:Tablets, Enteric-Coated
coating; imaging method; optical coherence tomography; process analytical technology; tablet