A compartment model for percutaneous absorption: compatibility of lag time and steady-state flux with diffusion model.

The lag times and steady-state flux predicted by a specific case of the compartment model, which was recently proposed to generate finite-dose percutaneous permeation pharmacokinetics, are compared with those predicted by the diffusion model. When the intercompartmental transfer rate constants are defined so that the three statistical moments of the compartmental model (the mean residence times of a drug in the vehicle and that in the skin and the variance of residence time in the vehicle) are identical to those in the diffusion model, the lag times and steady-state flux values predicted by the two models are the same.