<p class="first" id="d90353e101">Over the last few years, conventional medicine has
been increasingly moving towards
precision medicine. Today, the production of oral pharmaceutical forms tailored to
patients is not achievable by traditional industrial means. A promising solution to
customize oral drug delivery has been found in the utilization of 3D Printing and
in particular Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). Thus, the aim of this systematic literature
review is to provide a synthesis on the production of pharmaceutical solid oral forms
using FDM technology. In total, 72 relevant articles have been identified via two
well-known scientific databases (PubMed and ScienceDirect). Overall, three different
FDM methods have been reported: "Impregnation-FDM", "Hot Melt Extrusion coupled with
FDM" and "Print-fill", which yielded to the formulation of thermoplastic polymers
used as main component, five families of other excipients playing different functional
roles and 47 active ingredients. Solutions are underway to overcome the high printing
temperatures, which was the initial brake on to use thermosensitive ingredients with
this technology. Also, the moisture sensitivity shown by a large number of prints
in preliminary storage studies is highlighted. FDM seems to be especially fitted for
the treatment of rare diseases, and particular populations requiring tailored doses
or release kinetics. For future use of FDM in clinical trials, an implication of health
regulatory agencies would be necessary. Hence, further efforts would likely be oriented
to the use of a quality approach such as "Quality by Design" which could facilitate
its approval by the authorities, and also be an aid to the development of this technology
for manufacturers.
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