One-dimensional drug release from finite Menger sponges: In silico simulation

VILLALOBOS, R.; DOMINGUEZ, A.; GANEM, A.; VIDALES, A M; CORDERO, S.

CHAOS, SOLITONS AND FRACTALS

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Año: 2009 vol. 42 p. 2875 - 2884

0960-0779

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the consequences of the spatial distribution ofcomponents in pharmaceutical matrices type Menger sponge on the drug release kineticfrom this kind of platforms by means of Monte Carlo computer simulation. First, six kindsof Menger sponges (porous fractal structures) with the same fractal dimension, df = 2.727,but with different random walk dimension, dw [2.149,3.183], were constructed as modelsof drug release device. Later, Monte Carlo simulation was used to describe drug releasefrom these structures as a diffusion-controlled process. The obtained results show thatdrug release from Menger sponges is characterized by an anomalous behavior: there areimportant effects of the microstructure anisotropy, and porous structures with the samefractal dimension but with different topology produce different release profiles. Moreover,the drug release kinetic from heteromorphic structures depends on the axis used to transportthe material to the external medium. Finally, it was shown that the number of releasingsites on the matrix surface has a significant impact on drug release behavior and it canbe described quantitatively by the Weibull function.