Drug Clearance
Definition:
Drug clearance is the plasma volume from which a drug is cleared over a given period. It is equal to the rate at which a drug is removed from the plasma, divided by the drug’s concentration in plasma. The units of measurement are volume/time (e.g. mL/min).Clearance is the sum of all biological processes (hepatic, renal, and other) that eliminate the drug from the body.
Relevance:
The concept of drug clearance helps guide medication dosing in terms of dose and frequency of administration, as clearance reflects how rapidly a drug is eliminated from the body (from a specific target organ or body compartment). Clearance can also be defined for specific organs (e.g. renal clearance, liver clearance), to reflect the involvement of specific organs in the overall clearance/elimination of a drug.
Drug clearance is also important to consider for patients who may have other conditions impacting their ability to metabolize and/or excrete drugs. For example, patients with renal or hepatic diseases may require adjusted doses of a drug to maintain plasma concentration in the desired range to reduce risk of severe side effects or adverse events.
Teaching Tips:
Check out this video on drug clearance : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m07ON7VA7VE
Linked terms: Dosage regimen, Half-life, Pharmacokinetics, Drug Toxicity, Plasma, First-Order Kinetics, Zero-Order Kinetics
Resources:
Horde, G. W., & Gupta, V. (2024). Drug Clearance. In StatPearls. StatPearlsPublishing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557758/
Drug Clearance—An overview | ScienceDirect Topics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2024, fromhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/drug-clearance
Yamazaki, H. (2017). 4.03—Drug-Metabolizing Enzyme Systems I. In S. Chackalamannil, D. Rotella, & S. E. Ward (Eds.), ComprehensiveMedicinal Chemistry III (pp. 45–50). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409547-2.12314-5
Chemtob, S. (2011). 20—Basic Pharmacologic Principles. In R. A. Polin, W. W. Fox, & S. H. Abman (Eds.), Fetal and NeonatalPhysiology (Fourth Edition) (pp. 211–223). W.B. Saunders. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-4160-3479-7.10020-5
Horde, G. W., & Gupta, V. (2024). Drug Clearance. In StatPearls. StatPearlsPublishing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557758/
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