Modeling of drug response in individual subjects.

Pharmacokinetic and drug response data from individual subjects are analyzed empirically by two different mathematical techniques. The drugs involved are the antiarrhythmic agent disopyramide, whose kinetics can be described by a two-compartment model, and two cardiac glycosides, digoxin and beta-methyl digoxin, for which three-compartment models are appropriate. The first analytical approach uses multiple linear regression to describe response in terms of the amount of drug in several kinetic compartments. The second approach describes response in terms of the drug concentration in an "effect" compartment. Both approaches describe the data equally well and require the same number of parameters for model specificaton.