CLINICAL PHARMACOKINETICS

This review emphasizes the aspects of pharmacokinetics that have the greatest clinical utility. Recent conceptual and technologic advances in pharmacokinetics are placed in the proper context. The following topics are discussed in turn: the single-compartment pharmacokinetic model; general principles of drug dosing; kinetics of drug elimination (half-life, clearance); effects of disease on drug elimination (renal, hepatic); kinetics of drug accumulation (continuous infusion, intermittent administration); bioavailability (kinetics of drug absorption, determination of bioavailability, factors affecting bioavailability); drug distrubution and the kinetics of pharmacologic response (the effects of drug binding on distribution, intercompartmental clearance, kinetics of pharmacologic response). (B. Calesnick, Springfield, Pa.)