Prediction of Plasma Drug Concentration Profiles and Pharmacokinetic Parameters of Nifedipine Commercial Tablets using the Convolution Method

The aim of this study was to predict the blood/plasma drug concentration profiles for five brand of nifedipine present on the Saudi Arabia market by using the numerical convolution method and to estimate the pharmacokinetic parameters (Cmax, Tmax, Ka, K and Vd) by the application of the residual method to the predicted plasma drug concentration profiles. Results showed that the higher Cmax was 118.95ng/ml for brand A2 and the lower Cmax was 72.29ng/ml for brand A3. The Tmax was ranged from 2.3 hr to 4.9 hr for brands A2 and A3 respectively. The total area under plasma drug concentration curve (AUCinf.) was in lower value equal to 585.59 ng x hr/ml for brand A2 and the higher value was for brand A5 equal to 743.52ng x hr/ml. The volume of distribution was also increased from 52.5 L for free nifidipine to 72 L for brand A1. The predicted first order elimination rate constant was decreased from 0.34 hr-1 for free nifedipine to 0.17 hr-1 for brand A3. The half-life of nifedapine was increased from 2 hours for free drug to 3.93 hours for brand A3. From this study it can be concluded that brands present in the market that shows similarity in accordance to the Dissimilarity factor f1 are not always guaranty that they will be bioequivalent in vivo and vice versa. Also, this study indicates that the method of convolution is a useful tool for prediction of bioequivalence of different brands present on the market.