Pharmacokinetics in clinical practice. 2. Applications.

The pharmacokinetic concepts introduced and defined in a preceding article are now applied to the management of drug therapy for the individual patient. The factors that affect the time course of drug concentrations in plasma produced by repetitive administration include the dosing rate, total clearance, biologic half-life, and systemic availability of the drug. A clinical pharmacokinetics service can monitor drug concentrations in biologic fluids, design individualized drug-dosing regimens, and carry out pharmacokinetic diagnostic work-ups to help determine the reasons for a patient's unusual response to drug therapy.