Pharmacokinetic estimations from microdialysis data.

Microdialysis has recently been adapted for sampling the extracellular fluid of various organs in order to measure drug concentrations, and the first clinical application has been published. My aim here is to provide simple rules about how to analyse pharmacokinetic data from such studies. The plotting of data on a time scale and the estimation of C (0) and slopes is not a trivial problem when multicompartmental models are assumed or sampling intervals are unequal. I have developed formulae and algorithms to solve the problem. A simple rule of thumb is given, suggesting when these formulae need to be applied. It is shown that the calculations of half-life and slopes is similar to standard methods for equal sample intervals and that calculation of AUC and clearance may be even more accurate for microdialysis data than for ordinary blood sampling, because of the time-integral character of the dialysis method. I have dealt with both zero-order and first-order kinetics.