Pharmacokinetics for the Prescriber

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• 作者：Howard L McLeod
• 关键词：pharmacokinetics ; prescriber
• 刊名：Medicine
• 出版年：2003
• 出版时间：1 August 2003
• 年：2003
• 卷：31
• 期：8
• 页码：11-15
• 全文大小：94 K

文摘

Pharmacokinetics is a tool for describing the movement of drugs through the body over time, and deals with the processes of absorption from the site of administration, distribution throughout the body, metabolism or conjugation of the drug, and elimination from the body. Pharmacokinetics can be thought of as what the patient does to the drug (whereas pharmacodynamics is what the drug does to the patient). An understanding of pharmacokinetics should help the clinician to:

• appreciate how dosing regimens are devised

• tailor a dosing regimen to the individual requirements of the patient (e.g. in renal failure)

• determine what may be wrong when a patient fails to respond to treatment

• determine why a drug has caused toxicity

• elucidate the mechanisms of drug interactions.

Clinical pharmacokinetics is particularly valuable with drugs for which the margin between therapeutic and toxic concentrations is narrow. The pharmacokinetic profile of a drug should not be considered in isolation; its pharmacodynamic effects must also be taken into account.