A theoretical model to characterize the drug release behavior of drug-eluting stents with durable polymer matrix coating.

The time-dependent local drug delivery from drug-eluting stents (DES) plays a critical role in reducing restenosis in intravascular stenting. To better understand the basic mechanism of drug release for certain polymer-drug-coated DES platforms, a cylindrical diffusion model was applied successfully to quantitatively describe the experimental drug release data of Dynalink-E in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that the profiles of Dynalink-E everolimus release could be controlled by such characteristic parameters as coating thickness and diffusion coefficient. The model could be used to quantitatively characterize the drug release profiles and IVIV correlations.