On separation of time scales in pharmacokinetics

Abstract

A lot of criticism against the standard formulation of pharmacokinetics has been raised by several authors. It seems that the natural reaction for that criticism is to comment it from the point of view of the theory of conservation laws. Simple example of balance equations for the intravenous administration of drug has been given in 2011 and the corresponding equations for extravasal administration are in the text. In principle, the equations of that kind allow one to describe in the self consistent manner different processes of administration, distribution, metabolism and elimination of drugs. Moreover, it is possible to model different pharmacokinetic parameters of the non-compartmental pharmacokinetics and therefore to comment criticism of Rosigno. However, for practical purposes one needs approximate methods, in particular, those based on separation of the time scales. In this text, such method is described and its effectiveness is discussed. Basic equations are in the next chapter. Final remarks are at the end of the text.