RESUMEN
At present, there are many difficulties in the development and production of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) tablets. This work aimed to explore the feasibility of improving dissolution difficulty and large dosage of TCM tablets by co-spray drying TCM extract with a small amount of pore-foaming agent ammonium bicarbonate. A series of porous Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma powders were prepared by co-spray drying Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma with different amounts of ammonium bicarbonate, and their powder pro-perties and tablet properties were comparatively investigated. At the same time, Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma commercial tablets and raw material tablets were used as control drugs, the improvement degree of its compressibility and dissolution rate was investigated. The results showed that there were higher porosity, specific surface area and hollow spheroidal particles structure of powders via co-spray drying Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma with NH_4HCO_3. Compared to parent and commercial Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma tablets, the dissolution rates and compressibility of porous Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma tablets were significantly increasing. High compressibility could increase drug loading by reducing excipients in manufacturing of tablets and lower the dose of Fagopyri Dibotryis Rhizoma tablets.