Principles of Pharmacokinetics and/or Pharmacodynamics
Summarize three key principles of pharmacokinetics and/or pharmacodynamics.
Sample Answer
Principles of Pharmacokinetics and/or Pharmacodynamics
When a drug enters a body, the body will recognize and process it according to the unique characteristics of the drugs. Pharmacokinetics is the study of how the body will react to various drugs (Currie, 2018). Information obtained from pharmacokinetics can therefore be utilized to improve the administration of different medications.
There are four main principles of pharmacokinetics which include liberation, absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (Straehla & Warren, 2020). These principles can therefore be utilized to explain the characteristics of different drugs in a body. Liberation is the first process that occurs when one takes a given drug. Liberation is the release of a pharmaceutical substance from its formulation. Liberation has to occur for a drug to be adequately absorbed into the body (Currie, 2018). Absorption is the second stage of the pharmacokinetic process. Absorption is the process in which a drug enters the blood in the body of an individual. The pharmacokinetic conditions for absorption include bioavailability which is the amount of work that will be absorbed in the body, and the constant absorption rate (Straehla & Warren, 2020). The third principle of pharmacokinetics is distribution. Distribution involves the dispersion of pharmaceutical substances in the tissues and fluids in an individual’s body. The different processes that affect the distribution of a drug in the body include unbound fraction and apparent volume of distribution (Currie, 2018). The third principle of pharmacokinetics is metabolism. Metabolism is the breaking down of a pharmaceutical substance. Metabolism is affected by the metabolic clearance rate of a given drug. The fourth principle of pharmacokinetics is excretion. Excretion involves the removal of a pharmaceutical substance from the body. Some drugs rarely get excreted from the body and can accumulate in tissues (Straehla & Warren, 2020).
References
- Currie, G. M. (2018). Pharmacology, Part 2: Introduction to Pharmacokinetics. Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology, 46(3), 221–230. https://doi.org/10.2967/jnmt.117.199638
- Straehla, J. P., & Warren, K. E. (2020). Pharmacokinetic Principles and Their Application to Central Nervous System Tumors. Pharmaceutics, 12(10), 948. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics12100948
