Assessment of Plasma Drug Level with Erosion Controlled Release Dosage Forms: Effect of the Shape and Dimensions, and Residence Time in the Gastrointestine

Controlled release dosage forms by erosion are able to offer advantages over the immediate release dosage forms. Not only the kinetics of drug release is prolonged, but also the plasma drug level is more constant. Special attention is given on various factors of concern which play an important role in the drug delivery. Various shapes such as parallelepiped, cube, cylinder and sphere for dosage forms of same volume are considered, with their kinetics of drug release and plasma drug level. Various dimensions of these dosage forms with different times of full drug release ranging from 13 to 102 hours are also examined. Finally, the effect of the residence time of these dosage forms in the gastrointestine of the kinetics of release and the plasma drug level is evaluated for all these dosage forms of various shapes and dimensions. Some emphasis is placed upon the interest of having dosage forms able to adhere to the gastrointestine wall and thus, stay over a period of time much longer than the usual gastrointestine tract time.