A two compartment open model for digoxin pharmacokinetics in patients receiving a wide range of digoxin doses.

The pharmacokinetic parameters for a two compartment open model were defined for six patients receiving a wide range of Digoxin doses. It was demonstrated that the two compartment model is a valid one to use for Digoxin pharmacokinetics. This model is an useful concept because it can explain the necessity to vary Digoxin dosage in patients with different body weights, the time course of the effect of Digoxin and certain causes of increased tolerance to Digoxin. There were no alterations in the parameters of this model or of the percent of an injected Digoxin dose excreted in the urine and stool in our patients in atrial fibrillation who appeared to require larger doses to control their ventricular rates. This also suggests that the kinetics of excretion of Digoxin are not influenced by altering the Digoxin dose.