We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part III - Pharmacodynamic interactions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
Experimental methods
Basic principles
Overall, it is much easier to assess and quantify pharmacokinetic interactions than pharmacodynamic ones. In the case of pharmacokinetic interactions, one drug will alter the pharmacokinetics of another drug. Changes in pharmacokinetic parameters can be assessed quantitatively by single dose pharmacokinetic studies, by changes in steady-state levels, or by changes in protein binding, etc. Measuring levels and calculating pharmacokinetic parameters is relatively straightforward. Assessing a pharmacodynamic interaction between two drugs requires a valid quantitative measurement of a specific drug effect for the two drugs individually, as well as a quantitative measurement of the effect of the two drugs administered together. Finally, it is necessary to determine the nature of the pharmacodynamic interaction that has occurred between the two drugs. Also, before the two drugs are administered together, one has to determine for each of the two drugs the appropriate dose to be administered for an assessment of the pharmacodynamic interaction to be possible. Once the response to the two drugs given together has been measured, the interaction has to be analyzed and categorized according to its type. As discussed and defined in Chapter 9 (see Table 9.1), there are four possible types of pharmacodynamic interactions: additive, supra-additive (potentiation), infra-additive (antagonism), and indifferent. Methods have been developed that make it possible to determine the type of interaction in experimental animal models. None of these methods can be applied directly to clinical studies.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
