On a reusable and multilevel methodology for modeling and simulation of pharmacokinetic-physiological systems: a preliminary study.

The intrinsic characteristics of physiological systems demand two critical requirements at the time of mathematical modeling: multilevel description and reusability. These features are not properly satisfied by current methodologies. In this paper the design of a multilevel and reusable methodology for modeling pharmacokinetic-physiological systems is presented. It has been implemented under a compliant modeling language to validate its reliability, obtaining a simulation components library, LibPK. A 3-pool urea kinetic model, whose vascular pool includes red blood cells, was built by means of LibPK. This model successfully confirmed the ability of this technology and the underlying methodology for addressing multilevel and reusability features, surpassing other physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling technologies.