Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Chronotherapeutics and Chronotherapeutic Drug Delivery Systems

J Sajan , T A Cinu, A J Chacko, J Litty, T Jaseeda

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Cheruvandoor Campus, Ettumanoor, Kerala-686 631, India;

For correspondence:- J Sajan Email: sajanjose@hotmail.com Tel:+919447600750

Received: 13 March 2009 Accepted: 2 August 2009 Published: 23 October 2009

Citation: Sajan J, Cinu TA, Chacko AJ, Litty J, Jaseeda T. Chronotherapeutics and Chronotherapeutic Drug Delivery Systems. Trop J Pharm Res 2009; 8(5):467-475 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v8i5.12

© 2009 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Chronotherapeutics refers to a treatment method in which in vivo drug availability is timed to match rhythms of disease, in order to optimise therapeutic outcomes and minimise side effects. It is based on the observation that there is an interdependent relationship between peak-to-trough rhythmic activity in disease symptoms and risk factors, pharmacologic sensitivity, and pharmacokinetics of many drugs. The specific time that patients take their medication is very important as it has significant impact on treatment success. Optimal clinical outcome cannot be achieved if drug plasma concentrations are constant. If symptoms of a disease display circadian variation, drug release should also vary over time. Drug pharmacokinetics can also be time-dependent; therefore, variations both in a disease state and in drug plasma concentration need to be taken into consideration in developing drug delivery systems intended for the treatment of disease with adequate dose at appropriate time. Various technologies such as time-controlled, pulsed, triggered and programmed drug delivery devices have been developed and extensively studied in recent years for chronopharmaceutical drug delivery. These, as well as pertinent issues, are addressed in this review.

Keywords: Chronotherapeutics; Circadian rhythm; Chronopharmacokinetics; Chronopharmaceutics; Drug delivery systems