Clinical application of pharmacokinetics for antiarrhythmic drugs.

Tables 3 and 4 summarize the important pharmacokinetic characteristics of commonly-used antiarrhythmic agents. Pharmacokinetic principles are just as important to the clinician as they are to pharmacologists. For the pharmacologist they define the time course of processes involved in the absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of drugs. For the clinician they provide basis for administering drugs to patients with disease processes which require a specific agent. Plasma concentration is generally related to efficacy and safety for many antiarrhythmic drugs and understanding the principles related to drug concentration in individual patients is necessary for rational use of many cardioactive agents. This paper provides an approach for the clinician to utilize the basic concepts of pharmacokinetics in practice.