Cinnarizine is a lipophilic weakly basic active ingredient with pH-dependent solubility, whose biological availability is affected by the presence of food in the digestive tract. Our object was to evaluate how the pH value and the presence of lipids in the medium affect the release cinnarizine from the tablet in an in vitro system. The experiments were conducted in a flow-through system with glass beads. We used four-times diluted McIlvaine buffers with pH values 3, 5 and 7 as the dissolution medium. The presence of lipids in food was simulated by adding of lipid emulsion SMOFlipid®. The release of cinnarizine was significantly affected by the pH value of the media. In the medium with pH 3, the entire dose of the active ingredient was released during the experiments, while in media with pH 5 and 7, most of the drug remained undissolved. The presence of lipids in the medium improved the release rate at all pH values of the medium, especially in pH 5 and 7 media, where cinnarizine is poorly water-soluble.
We also analysed the distribution of cinnarizine between the aqueous and lipid phase of the media with lipids at different pH values and tablet doses. The phases of the sample were separated by centrifugation, and the percentage of released cinnarizine distributed into each of the phases was determined. The higher the pH, the higher the percentage of released cinnarizine in the lipid phase. At pH values 5 and 7, most of the cinnarizine was in the lipid phase, while the distribution between the phases remained relatively constant during the experiments. In the media with pH 3, the distribution changed over time, generally as the concentration of cinnarizine in the sample increased, the percentage of cinnarizine in the aqueous phase increased as well.
Release and distribution of cinnarizine were also evaluated in experiments with a sequence of media with different pH values ranging from pH 7 to pH 3. The results of the experiments with pH gradient of the media were consistent with the results of release in media with constant pH. In the media without lipids, the release during the introduction of media with pH 7 and 5 was very slow, however, it rapidly accelerated at the beginning of the introduction of media with pH 3. The addition of lipids to the media significantly improved the release of cinnarizine, especially at higher pH values. Most of cinnarizine was in the lipid phase at higher pH values, but as the pH approached 3, distribution into the aqueous phase increased rapidly to around 45 %. We conclude that the distribution of cinnarizine depends on the pH of the media, which affects the ionization and consequently the solubility of cinnarizine in the aqueous phase.
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