In this work, the capability of two polymeric drug delivery systems (DDS) containing racemic ibuprofen (IBU) for controlled release of IBU in different media was studied carrying out assays in-vitro. To quantitatively monitor the release of R(-)- and S(+)-IBU, a fast, sensitive and inexpensive capillary electrophoresis (CE) method was developed. To do this, different chiral selectors, temperatures, buffer compositions and pHs were tested. This new CE method uses bare silica columns together with a buffer containing 6% Dextrin in a 150 mM sodium tetraborate buffer at pH 9. Baseline separations of R(-)- and S(+)-IBU were achieved in less than 5 min at 20 degrees C. By using this method, both enantiomers can be determined at concentrations as low as 1 microg/ml, allowing the detection of enantiomeric percentages of 0.5% of R(-)-IBU in the presence of 99.5% of the optical antipode. Moreover, the method shows a high reproducibility for the same day and different days. The usefulness of this method to quantitatively monitor the release of R(-)- and S(+)-IBU from two different polymeric DDS is demonstrated. It is shown that the release rate of IBU depends on the spacer of the side residue used in the polymeric device. Also, it is demonstrated that the release of both enantiomers is enzymatically activated in rat plasma.