  From the viewpoint of inverse problem, the optimization of drug release based
on the multi-laminated drug controlled release devices has been regarded as the
solution problem of the diffusion equation initial value inverse problem. In
view of the ill-posedness of the corresponding inverse problem, a modified
Tikhonov regularization method is proposed by constructing a new regularizing
filter function based on the singular value theory of compact operator. The
convergence and the optimal asymptotic order of the regularized solution are
obtained. Then the classical Tikhonov regularization method and the modified
Tikhonov regularization method are applied to the optimization problem of the
initial drug concentration distribution. For three various desired release
profiles (constant release, linear decrease release and linear increase
followed by a constant release profiles), better results can be obtained by
using the modified Tikhonov regularization method. The numerical results
demonstrate that the modified Tikhonov regularization method not only has the
optimal asymptotic order, but also is suitable for the optimization and design
of multi-laminated drug controlled release devices.
