Immediate release dosage forms: thrust areas and challenges

Oral dosage forms are most commonly used and old existing dosage forms because of their advantages like easy manufacturing, self-administration, compactness and painless. But in many cases quick onset of action is require and conventional dosage forms are not able to give quick action. To overcome this problem, immediate release dosage forms are used. Immediate release dosage forms are the novel types of dosage forms that act very quickly after administration. In the immediate release dosage forms various superdisintegrants are used like croscarmellose, sodium starch glycolate, crospovidone etc which provide quick breakage/disintegration of tablet after administration. Other excipients like bulking agents, lubricants, flavours, emulsifying agents etc are also used. In this article, focus is on the various advantages/benefits of immediate release dosage form, excipients used in immediate release dosage form, various technologies for immediate release tablets, potential therapeutical area where immediate release dosage form used. This article also covers various marketed products of immediate release dosage forms.