3D PLA printed scaffolds as a carrier for nanocrystals

BARRIENTOS, BRUNO; LÓPEZ-VIDAL, LUCÍA; REAL, JUAN PABLO; PALMA, SANTIAGO

Córdoba - Online

Congreso; RICiFa 2020 + 1; 2021

UNITEFA

Among the multiple strategies used to improve drug solubility, the formulation of nanocrystals (NCs) has become the preferred one. However, NCs are difficult to incorporate into Solid Dosage Forms (SDF) due they are powders with unfavourable flow properties for industrial processing and their aggregation by external forces (granulation, compression) is complicated. The aim of this work was to vehicle NCs in a SDF using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing. A nanosuspension was prepared by microsphere-assisted nanomilling using a laboratory-scale mill (NanoDisp®) and a model drug. To get the Polylactid Acid (PLA) scaffolds we designed a STL file of a solid cylinder and "sliced" it setting ?zero? in all external layers in the software. The zigzag (ZZ) and gyroid (GG) infill patterns were selected due to their geometric arrangements and infill percentages of 20, 40 and 60% were use. The loading method consist in soak up the scaffolds in the nanosuspension and freeze-drying them, causing the adherence of dry nanocrystals on the inside of the PLA holes. As expected, the scaffold design affected the load percentage and uniformity. Scaffolds with 20%, 40% and 60% infill have loaded on average 20±4.0%, 9±2.5%, 5±1.0% of NCs respectively. No significant differences were observed between the GG and ZZ designs. In dissolution tests, all scaffolds showed immediate dissolution reaching values greater than 85% at 5 minutes. As observed, FDM Scaffolding represents a promising strategy to vehicleize NCs into oral SDF.