COURSE DESCRIPTION

As the course title indicates, clinical pharmacokinetics focuses primarily on the pharmacokinetic aspects of the individualized optimization of drug dosage. Clinical pharmacokinetics is the process of using drug concentrations, pharmacokinetic principles, and pharmacodynamic criteria to optimize therapy in individual patients. Other names referring to essentially the same process include "therapeutic drug monitoring" and "applied pharmacokinetics". It should be obvious therefore that the drug assay is only a small, albeit important part of the rational application of clinical pharmacokinetics to drug therapy. More important is the professional competence of the individual who has to determine when, what and how to monitor, and who must interpret the results and recommend appropriate action to the physician responsible for the patient's therapeutic management.

Clinical pharmacokinetic assessments and decisions will have to be based on certain general principles that constitute the framework of the discipline. That is reflected by the organization of this course. The first several lectures are a basic introduction to the key pharmacokinetic principles which can be understood by students who have had no formal training in this specialty. Complex equations are minimized. Extensive explanations and graphical illustrations accompany the equations are presented, thus enabling the student to conceptualize principles such as bioavailability, volume of distribution, clearance, elimination rate constant and half-life. The subsequent lectures illustrate the clinical application of pharmacokinetics to specific drugs through the presentation and solution of problems commonly encountered in the clinical practice setting. These lectures are detailed expositions of individual drugs: the kinetics of their absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion; the usual therapeutic concentration range, as well as the relationships between concentration and pharmacodynamic effects and factors affecting these relationships; the application of the available information concerning the pharmacokinetic characteristics of the drug to the individualization of therapy; available analytical methods; and an outline of a rational approach to the optimization of drug dosage, including the design of the initial regimen and subsequent adjustments of dosages.

Therefore, this course will seek to:

1. enhance the student's knowledge of clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to the individualization of drug dosing regimens;

REQUIRED TEXT

Schumacher GE. Therapeutic Drug Monitoring. Appleton & Lange. 1995.

RECOMMENDED TEXT

Winter ME. Basic Clinical Pharmacokinetics. 3rd Edition. Spokane, Applied Therapeutics, Inc. 1994.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

A. It is the policy of this department and the course coordinator that for any student, who admits to or is proven to have committed an act of academic dishonesty on any assignment, quiz, or examination, that a grade of zero (0) will be assigned, and that the student will automatically FAIL the course.

B. Calculators used during exams are subject to inspection and storage of equations or text is not allowed.