Physiologically based pharmacokinetic models for anticancer drugs.

The rationale and history of the development of physiologically based pharmacokinetic models are briefly reviewed in this paper. The methods of model construction and the previous application of this type of model to anticancer drugs are discussed. Future research should be focused on the following areas: (1) interspecies scaling, (2) the effects of disease states on the pharmacokinetics of anticancer drugs, and (3) the applications of pharmocokinetics to the studies of growth behavior of cancer cells. The ultimate goal will be to utilize this basic information to design an optimal dosage regimen and treatment schedule for the safe and effective cancer chemotherapy of each individual patient.