Adaptive Control Theory and Applications to Drug Delivery

It is often necessary to maintain one or more physiological variables within certain desirable limits via the administration of therapeutic drugs. This control may be imposed for a relatively short time, as in the case of anesthesia or blood pressure regulation during a surgical procedure or it may be required over a patient´s remaining lifetime, as in the case of a diabetic patient receiving insulin. In both cases, an automated system to monitor appropriate physiological variables would potentially aid the physician and improve patient care. However, the penalty for controller malfunction is extremely high. In this talk, controller design considerations specific to automatic drug delivery will be discussed, and the suitability of adaptive control algorithms for this class of applications will be argued.