ABSTRACT
Although inhalation therapy represents a promising drug delivery route for the treatment of respiratory diseases, the real-time evaluation of lung drug deposition remains an area yet to be fully explored. To evaluate the utility of the photo reflection method (PRM) as a real-time non-invasive monitoring of pulmonary drug delivery, the relationship between particle emission signals measured by the PRM and in vitro inhalation performance was evaluated in this study. Symbicort® Turbuhaler® was used as a model dry powder inhaler. In vitro aerodynamic particle deposition was evaluated using a twin-stage liquid impinger (TSLI). Four different inhalation patterns were defined based on the slope of increased flow rate (4.9-9.8 L/s2) and peak flow rate (30 L/min and 60 L/min). The inhalation flow rate and particle emission profile were measured using an inhalation flow meter and a PRM drug release detector, respectively. The inhalation performance was characterized by output efficiency (OE, %) and stage 2 deposition of TSLI (an index of the deagglomerating efficiency, St2, %). The OE × St2 is defined as the amount delivered to the lungs. The particle emissions generated by four different inhalation patterns were completed within 0.4 s after the start of inhalation, and were observed as a sharper and larger peak under conditions of a higher flow increase rate. These were significantly correlated between the OE or OE × St2 and the photo reflection signal (p < 0.001). The particle emission signal by PRM could be a useful non-invasive real-time monitoring tool for dry powder inhalers.