Optimization of nanoparticle drug microcarrier on the pharmacokinetics of drug release: a preliminary study

Ideal drug delivery process would exhibits zero-order kinetics. However, in practical, most drug delivery process is first-order kinetics. This study is aimed to mathematically model, analyze and determine the optimal polymer shape of the drug micro-carrier that achieves a near zero-order release. We also extend study in deriving and optimizing theoretically the optimal distance between the two optimal micro-carrier shapes. A mathematical model that derived from Carslaw and Jaeger equation of conduction of heat is used to model the relationship between the geometry shape of the carrier and the drug concentration. An optimization objective function is formulated from the mathematical model and MATLAB Optimization Toolbox is used to perform the numerical analysis. The results suggest that reducing the k value (ratio of volume of the fluid to that of the sphere) gives a near zero-order kinetics drug delivery response for all the microcarrier geometry shapes (with equivalent surface area/volume ratio to a sphere with radius R(s)) investigated. Our preliminary results showed that tetrahedron microcarrier exhibits the best response and the worst response is for tablet (with R = R(s)/2).