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. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A, 2012.