Other Aspects of Pharmacokinetics

In the previous chapter (Part 3, Chapter 59), Levy and Gibaldi have considered the models that are most frequently used in pharmacokinetics and the ways that they may be used to assess the rates of absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of drugs, to determine the bioavailability of pharmaceutical preparations and to predict plasma levels obtained after multiple doses from data obtained with single doses. In this chapter, I shall review many of the assumptions that have been made in the derivation of the equations, discuss various processes that are reflected by the values obtained with the equations, and describe some of the situations in which the models are valid and invalid.