Abstract

The article presents details of ZOREL, a software developed for the purpose of studying drug release kinetics from compressed matrics. The program, written in FORTRAN, uses raw dissolution data for input. It initially corrects the dissolution data for drug and/or volume losses occurring at the time of sampling and on the basis of the weight of the dosage form and the drug content, estimates the values of amount and percent drug released at various times for each formulation unit. The values of log mean fraction released are computed and regressed against log time to yield the values of kinetic constant (k) and release exponent (n) and subsequently calculations are made for mean dissolution time (MDT). For swelling matrices, the respective contributions of the diffusion and the polymer relaxation along with the constants of k1 and k2, are also computed. Based on the phenomenological analysis, the software predicts the type of release viz Fickian, non-Fickian (anomalous) or zero-order. In addition, the values of mean (±SD) percent released are calculated and regressed against square root of time up to various observations. The values of rate of drug release, and t50%, t60%, up to t90% of the drug release are computed using the program.