Analysis of drug penetration through skin considering donor concentration decrease.

A diffusion model for in vitro drug penetration through the skin was constructed which considered drug concentration decrease in the donor solution. The Laplace transforms of the equations corresponding to the time courses of the drug amount in the receptor solution, in the skin and in the donor solution were derived. Computer fitting of the penetration profiles of in vitro experiments to the obtained Laplace transformed equation by a non-linear least squares program based on first inverse Laplace transform algorithm (MULTI(FILT)) gave two parameters corresponding to drug diffusion and partitioning. These parameters well estimated the drug amount remaining in the donor solution and in the skin. The mean transit time (MTT) was defined for drug penetration through the skin and was calculated using these parameters. MTT was shown to be a good index of drug penetrability.