Encapsulated drug devices

The rate controlling membranes in encapsulated drug devices are most commonly made of dense polymeric materials. In these devices, a solution-diffusion mechanism controls release rates. Pick s First Law governs the specific release rate (q) ... 

The rate at which an encapsulated drug will be released from a polyanhydride device, either a wafer or a microsphere, is strongly dependent on polymer composition... 

The nanostructured molecular arrangements from DNA developed by Seeman may find applications as biological encapsulation and drug-delivery systems, as artificial multienzymes, or as scaffolds for the self-assembling nanoscale fabrication of technical elements. Moreover, DNA-protein conjugates may be anticipated as versatile building blocks in the fabrication of multifunctional supramolecular devices and also as highly functional-... 

Zentner and coworkers [24,26] utilized this information in their development of a system that releases this drug over a 24 hr period. The use of NaCl to modulate the release of diltiazem presents an interesting problem in that the concentration of the solubility modifier must be maintained within certain limits and below its saturation solubility within the device. To solve this problem, core formulations were developed that contained both free and encapsulated NaCl. The encapsulated NaCl was prepared by placing a microporous coating of cellulose acetate butyrate containing 20 wt% sorbitol onto sieved NaCl crystals. The coated granules released NaCl over 12-14 hr period via an osmotic mechanism into either water or the core tablet formulation. The in vitro release profile for tablets (core I devices) containing 360 mg of diltiazem HC1 and 100 mg of NaCl equally divided between the immediate release and controlled release fractions... 

However, it has to be realized that biological templates remain inserted in the final nanoparticles and this is not acceptable for many applications. Nevertheless, some recent examples indicate that such biomimetic materials may be suitable for the design of biotechnological and medical devices [32]. For instance, it was shown that silica gels formed in the presence of p-R5 were excellent host matrices for enzyme encapsulation [33]. In parallel, biopolymer/silica hybrid macro-, micro- and nanocapsules were recently obtained via biomimetic routes and these exhibit promising properties for the design of drug delivery materials (see Section 3.1.1) [34,35],... 

Diffusion-controlled membranes exist in two categories depot systems, in which the drug is totally encapsulated within a reservoir, and monolithic systems, where the drug is dispersed in a rate-controlling polymer matrix [25]. One commercially successful depot device is the Alza Ocusert for ocular delivery of pilocarpine in the treatment of glaucoma [25]. 

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