Abstract
Purpose: Respiratory drug
delivery has been attracted great interest for the past decades, because of the
high incidence of pulmonary diseases. However, despite its invaluable benefits,
there are some major drawbacks in respiratory drug delivery, mainly due to the
relatively high drug deposition in undesirable regions. One way to improve the
efficiency of respiratory drug delivery through metered-dose inhalers (MDI) is
placing a respiratory spacer between the inhaler exit and the mouth. The aim of
this study was to assess the effect of type and shape of spacer on the
aerosolization performance of MDIs.
Methods: A commercial Beclomethasone
Dipropionate (BDP) MDI alone or equipped with two different spacer
devices (roller and pear type) widely distributed in the world pharmaceutical
market was used. The effect of spacers was evaluated by
calculating aerosolization indexes such as fine particle fraction
(FPF), mass median aerodynamic diameters (MMAD) and geometric standard
deviation (GSD) using the next generation impactor.
Results: Although one of
the spacers resulted in superior outcomes than the other one, but it was not
statistically significant.
Conclusion: The results confirmed that the type and shape of spacer
did not substantially influence the aerosolization performance of MDIs.