A Review on Chronotherapy, A Time Programmed Drug Delivery

Abstract

All humans biological process is synchronized by biological or circadian rhythm. This concept helps in the emergence of chronotherapy; that means in our body the drug delivery is coordinated with the circadian rhythm. This technology is used to deliver drugs depends upon the rhythmic pattern of particular disease at a specific time. It's otherwise called as pulsatile drug delivery system. It is characterized by delivering drugs, immediately after a predetermined lag time within a short span of time. Chronotherapy is the coordination of treatment of a disease condition and circadian rhythm. Various diseases like Hypertension, Diabetes, Peptic ulcer, Asthma etc. show circadian variations. So a therapeutic system that coordinate the drug delivery in compliance with the circadian rhythm during periods of increased risk is highly required. According to the maximal clinical manifestation of the disease, the chronotherapeutic formulations deliver the therapeutic agent as a burst. The basic concepts of chronomodulated drug delivery system, biological rhythm, disease requiring chronotropic system and recent technologies for chronotherapy were mainly focused on this review.