Pharmacokinetic Properties of Cardiovascular Drugs

In the last three decades there has been a great increase in the number of drugs available to treat cardiovascular diseases. Patients have a wide spectrum of clinical presentation and can provide complex management problems. They may require emergency treatment using drugs by a parenteral route or long-term oral therapy during which time many clinical parameters are changing. The therapeutic and toxic effects of drugs depend on the available concentration at the site of action, and in general the drug concentration in plasma or whole blood correlates well with the pharmacological response. The development of sensitive and specific analytical methods to measure drugs in blood and/or urine has greatly enhanced our knowledge of their pharmacokinetic behaviour (Mayer et al. 1980).