Microballoons: An Advance Avenue for Gastroretentive Drug Delivery System- A Review

The purpose of writing this review on microballoons is to accumulate the recent literature with a special focus on the novel technological advancements in floating drug delivery system to achieve gastric retention. Microballoons (Hollow microsphere) promises to be a potential approach for gastric retention. Microballoons drug-delivery systems are based on non-effervescent system containing empty particles of spherical shape without core ideally having a size less than 200 micrometer. Microballoons drug delivery systems have shown to be of better significance in controlling release rate for drugs having site specific absorption. The floating microballoons showed gastroretentive controlled release delivery with efficient means of enhancing the bioavailability and promises to be a potential approach for gastric retention. Optimized hollow microspheres will find the central place in novel drug delivery, particularly in safe, targeted and effective in vivo delivery promises to be a potential approach for gastric retention. They are gastroretentive drug-delivery systems, which provide controlled release properties. The advantages, limitation, methods of preparation of hollow microsphere, applications, polymers used in hollow microspheres, characterizations of microballoons and formulation aspects with various evaluation techniques and marketed products are covered in detail.