Washing plastic spacers in household detergent reduces electrostatic charge and greatly improves delivery.

Ionic detergents reduce electrostatic charge on plastic spacers, thereby improving in vitro drug delivery. The aim of this study was to gain practical information on the use of detergents and to evaluate the relevance of this information on itt vivo drug deposition.Measurement of electrostatic charge and salbutamol particle size distribution was carried out on detergent-coated and noncoated plastic spacers. The efficiency of four household detergents was compared, and the influence of dilution and the duration of the antistatic effect were studied. In addition, the level of radiolabelled salbutamol deposition in the lungs of eight healthy adults was compared after inhalation through a new versus a detergent-coated spacer.In vitro, all tested detergents reduced the electrostatic charge on the spacer surface. This resulted in a mean increase of 37.4% (range 33.5-41.2) in small particle (