Unifying concept of pharmacokinetics derived from drug distribution and elimination in renal failure.

We are in the process of establishing a pharmacokinetic database for drug dosage adjustment to impaired renal function. To meet these demands, the system needs a unifying pharmacokinetic concept. Drug clearance is the common parameter that allows for intersecting the different pharmacokinetic approaches. In addition, two parameters are essentially needed for the concept, either the area-derived volume and the dominant elimination half-life or the moment-derived volume and the mean residence time. For drugs where the area-derived volume decreases with renal impairment, it can be shown that compartment-derived parameters are explicitly convertible into moment-derived parameters and vice versa.