Sparse sampling for assessment of drug exposure in toxicological studies

In support of animal toxicity testing of new drugs, toxicokinetics is designed to assess the systemic exposure of the animals to the drug across dose levels, genders, and periods of the study. In small rodents, repeated sampling may alter the health of the animals and jeopardize the toxicity evaluation. One conventional way to circumvent this limitation is to collect serial samples from satellite animals maintained as the main study animals but not monitored for toxicity.