Y. Ismail *
Crescent School of Pharmacy, B. S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, GST Road, Vandalur, Chennai 600048, Tamil Nadu, India.
Vijaya Kumar Voleti
School of Pharmacy, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, OMR Road, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
S. Priya
School of Pharmacy, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, OMR Road, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
In this post, we present a brief overview of our recently published book chapter titled “Chronotherapy and Pulsatile Drug Delivery Systems: Aligning Pharmacotherapy with Circadian Rhythms”
Chronotherapy is a therapeutic strategy that synchronises the timing of drug administration with the body’s endogenous circadian rhythms to enhance efficacy and reduce adverse effects. These rhythms regulate physiological processes such as hormone secretion, metabolism, sleep–wake cycles, and cardiovascular function, making timing an essential component of optimised therapy. Pulsatile drug delivery systems complement chronotherapy by releasing drugs in a programmed manner after a predetermined lag time, allowing the drug to reach peak concentrations at the time when symptoms are most severe or when the body is most receptive to treatment. Chronotherapy can be implemented using various approaches, including delayed or advanced sleep phase therapy, rest-phase adjustment, and combination interventions involving light or behavioural therapy. In clinical practice, chronotherapy has shown particular benefit in arthritis management—night-time dosing of NSAIDs or corticosteroids helps reduce early-morning stiffness in rheumatoid arthritis, while morning dosing of COX-2 inhibitors is more effective for osteoarthritis. Overall, aligning drug delivery with circadian patterns offers a promising strategy to enhance therapeutic outcomes in time-dependent diseases.