Electronic spreadsheet program for estimating two-compartment intravenous pharmacokinetic parameters by least squares linear regression analysis.

A microcomputer program using an electronic spreadsheet program was developed to calculate pharmacokinetic values of thiacetarsamide sodium, a drug used to kill the adult heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis) parasite of the dog. A least squares, semilogarithmic regression analysis was done on data using a two compartment intravenous model. The data entered includes the time after injection and the drug concentration at that time. A graph of the points can be viewed or plotted, with the time on the x-axis, and the natural log of the drug concentration on the y-axis. The program was developed on a Televideo (512 kbytes) microcomputer. The spreadsheet used was Lotus 123 with the pharmacokinetics program occupying 16 kbytes of memory (720 cells) out of the 400 kbytes available with Lotus.