Drug-resin drug interactions in patients with delayed gastric emptying: What is optimal time window for drug administration?

Most drug-drug interactions involve overlap or competition in drug metabolic pathways. However, there are medications, typically resins, whose function is to bind injurious substances such as bile acids or potassium within the digestive tract. The objective of this article is to review the functions of the stomach and the kinetics of emptying of different food forms or formulations to make recommendations on timing of medication administration in order to avoid intragastric drug interactions. Based on the profiles and kinetics of emptying of liquid nutrients and homogenized solids, a window of 3 h between administration of a resin drug and another 'target' medication would be expected to allow a median of 80% of medications with particle size <1 mm to empty from the stomach and, hence, avoid potential interaction such as binding of the 'target' medication within the stomach.