Abstract

Background: Three-dimensional printing (3DP), electrospinning, prilling, microencapsulation and hot melt extrusion (HME) are considered advanced technologies that offer the possibility to develop paediatric age-appropriate solid oral dosage forms. This systematic review was conducted to analyse the existing research studies that employed advanced technologies to fabricate personalised solid oral formulations for paediatric patients.

Methods: The steps that were involved in the preparation of this systematic review include: screening of the original articles in addition to defining all the inclusion and exclusion criteria assessing the validity of the results along with data extraction and analysis discussion and making a conclusion that states the suitability of using each technique for the development of solid oral dosage forms.

Results: 361 articles were screened initially but only 45 studies have met the inclusion criteria of this systematic review. 70% of these studies were using various 3DP technologies, 15% covered electrospinning, 10% employed HME, and 5% used a combination of alginate microencapsulation and electro-spraying techniques.

Conclusion: In terms of developing paediatric age-appropriate formulations, these advanced technologies were successfully explored to produce various solid oral formulations with improved solubility, palatability, and swallowability. For instance, FDM was used to produce taste-masked attractive donut-shaped dosage forms, chewable tablets, and candy-like formulations. In addition, this systematic review suggests that the paediatric pharmaceutical marketplace is currently shifting towards the development of personal novel formulations such as orodispersible, chewable and mini tablets that are more acceptable within the paediatric population than the current conventional dosage forms.

Keywords: 3D printing, electrospinning, hot melt extrusion, alginate microencapsulation, prilling, personalised medicine, paediatric formulations, solid oral dosage forms, tablets.