Numerical simulation of controlled nifedipine release from chitosan microgels

The numerical simulating investigation of drug delivery can provide deeper insight into drug release mechanisms and elucidate efficiently the influences of various physical parameters. Controlled nifedipine release from nonswellable chitosan sphere-based microgels is investigated numerically with a mathematical model in this article. The mathematical model takes into account both drug dissolution and drug diffusion through the continuous matrices of the spherical microgels. Meshless Hermite-cloud method is employed to solve the formulated partial differential equations. It is seen that the model well describes the nifedipine release process from the spherical chitosan microgels. The effect of several important physical parameters on drug release is evaluated, which include microsphere radius, equivalent drug saturation concentration, drug diffusion coefficient, and drug dissolution rate constant. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.