Predicting the aerosol performance of dry powder inhalation formulations by interparticulate interaction analysis using inverse gas chromatography

Previous studies have demonstrated the utility of inverse gas chromatography (IGC) in discriminating the differences in surface energy between salmeterol xinafoate (SX) powders prepared by conventional sequential batch crystallization and micronization and by supercritical fluid crystallization. In the present study, solubility parameters derived from IGC analysis at infinite dilution (zero coverage) were further utilized to evaluate the influence of solid-solid interactions on the in vitro aerosol performance of these SX samples, with or without the inclusion of a lactose carrier. To this end, the strength of cohesive SX-SX interactions and that of adhesive SX-lactose interactions were computed for the samples from the corresponding solubility parameters, and their fine particle fractions determined using a multi-stage liquid impinger. It was found that the aerosol performance of SX could be substantially improved by the addition of lactose carrier only if the adhesive SX-lactose interactions were stronger than the cohesive SX-SX interactions. The difference in strength between these two forms of interactions also displayed a significant correlation with the increase in fine particle fraction after the addition of lactose carrier. These results suggest that IGC-based interparticulate interaction measurements may serve as a useful means for predicting the aerosol performance of dry powder inhalation formulations.