Oral dissolving films: an effective tool for fast therapeutic action

The oral route is most familiar route as it has low cost of therapy and helps in the ease of administration of therapeutic agents which lead to high levels of patient compliance. The most known oral solid dosage forms are tablets and capsules. Many patients’ particularly pediatric and geriatric patients find it difficult to swallow tablets and hard gelatin capsules and do not take their medicines as prescribed. Difficulty in swallowing or dysphagia is identified to afflict nearly 35% of the general population. To reduce these difficulties, the growth of several fast dissolving drug delivery systems has been produced. Oral dissolving film is relatively a new dosage form in which thin film is prepared using hydrophilic polymers, which rapidly dissolves on tongue or buccal cavity. The film overcomes the danger/fear of choking. An ideal film should have the characteristics like pleasant taste, high stability, ease of handling and administration, no water necessary for administration. The present review focuses on hydrophilic polymers, plasticizers, sweeteners, flavors and colors etc which are used in the formulation of oral dissolving films including the manufacturing  aspects of oral dissolving film like solvent casting method, rolling method, extrusion method and solid dispersion method and evaluation parameters like disintegration, dissolution, tensile strength, thickness, folding endurance, elastic modulus for oral dissolving films.