Principles of Pharmacology Flashcards
What is the study of drugs?
pharmacology
What is the study of drugs in human?
clinical pharmacology
What is pharmacokinetics?
what the body does to drug before it gets to site of action (what happens to the drug)
What is pharmacodynamics?
what the drug does to the body when it gets to site of action (what happens to the body) - physical response
What is the easiest place to measure what is going on with a drug?
bloodstream
What is the movement of a drug from the site of administration into plasma (time we take medication until it gets to blood stream)
absorption
What is the process of drug movement throughout the body?
distribution
What is the biotransformation of a chemical (a drug) into another chemical (metabolite)? (drug is changing by an enzyme system)
metabolism
What is the irreversible loss of a drug (or metabolites)?
excretion, or elimination
What is the acronym that describes pharmacokinetics and what does it stand for?
ADME
A: absorption
D: distribution
M: metabolism
E: excretion or elimination
What does absorption require?
crossing a biological barrier
Absorption, and therefore bioavailability, is determined by what factors?
- drug characteristics (weight, solubility)
- patient factors (muscle mass, renal and liver function, gut function)
- ability to cross membranes
**passive diffusion
**facilitated diffusion
**active transport
What describes drugs moving between “compartments” such as bloodstream, fat, muscle, etc?
distribution
What are some physical factors that determine the rate and extend of distribution?
- cardiac output
- regional blood flow
- capillary permeability (inflammation, lesions)
- tissue volume
If a patient has low cardiac output, describe the quickness of medication travel throughout the body?
slow, low travel of medications
Areas of less blood flow may receive what?
not as much drug
What describes how much drug we can get into a space?
tissue volume
Movement of dug between compartments is determined by what factors?
- drug characteristics (weight, solubility)
- membrane permeability
- binding
**plasma protein binding
**tissue binding
**fat storage
**bone uptake
The body uses what to help prevent substances from getting into certain areas to protect it from substantial harm?
membrane permeability
What are different barriers in the body that drugs would need to cross?
- blood-brain barrier (protect brain)
- blood-placental barrier (protect fetus)
- blood-testes barrier
Why is membrane permeability an important concept to consider when treating infectious illnesses?
- just because drug is effective against a specific organism does not mean it will be able to reach the site of infection
- presence of inflammation can increase permeability of a normally impermeable membrane allowing drug to penetrate (meningitis)
When you have inflammation of the meninges, what increases, and what decreases?
permeability increases, protection decreases
What is the issue with plasma protein binding?
drugs bind to proteins instead of the receptors to induce a response, so it becomes stuck to the protein and cannot become “free” to bind to its site of action
What is a saturable system due to there being only so many binding sites so competition can occur?
plasma protein binding
If two highly bound drugs are given together, what can happen?
one may displace the other resulting in toxicity (due to more drug in blood)
Competition between drugs with the same site of action is only clinically relevant when?
when the drugs are more than 90% protein bound
Albumin is the primary circulating protein that binds what?
acidic drugs
alpha1-acid glycoproteins bind what?
basic drugs
Why do you need to watch for disease states, such as dementia, where albumin levels are decreased?
- albumin levels decrease with age
- decrease in levels may lead to greater drug effects in the elderly - drug toxicity
What describes when drugs may concentrate in tissues serving as a reservoir that slowly releases drug over time?
tissue binding
What can tissue binding lead to?
increased concentration in some tissues which can lead to localized tissue (gentamicin)
What describes when lipid soluble drugs may be sequestered in adipose tissue such as oral contraceptives moving into fat spaces?
fat storage
Why do drugs stay in adipose tissues when they are sequestered there?
there is poor blood flow to fat
What can be an issue in obese patients?
storage of drugs in adipose tissue (fat storage)
What describes when drugs can be absorbed onto bone crystal surface and continue to leach out over time?
bone uptake
What situations can bone uptake of drugs be beneficial in?
in cases where the drugs incorporation in bone allows for stabilization of bone matrix
Bone uptake is harmful when considering tetracyclines, lead and radium why?
Because these things hang out in the bone and can cause damage over time
An example where a drug is given IV and concentrates in the kidneys and leads to kidney damage is an example of what?
tissue binding
What is an imaginary volume of fluid that would be required to contain the amount of drug present in the body at the same concentration as the plasma?
volume of distribution
What is Vd?
volume of distribution
What is Cpo?
plasma concentration at time it enters bdoy
How do you find volume of distribution?
amount of drug in body (dose) divided by plasma concentration (Cpo)
What is the underlying assumption of volume of distribution?
that there is a uniform distribution throughout the body, but we know that is not true
What can calculating Vd tell us?
what body compartment the drug is distributed in
Total body water accounts for how much of an adults weight?
60%
Intracellular fluid accounts for how much of an adults weight?
35%
Extracellular fluid accounts for how much of an adults weight?
25%
Interstitial fluid accounts for how much of an adults weight?
21%
Plasma accounts for how much of an adults weight?
4%
Volume of distribution says we can hold so much fluid, but sometimes we can’t, what does this mean, if Vd is greater than total body weight?
This means that some of the drug we injected has gone somewhere else, so blood levels have decreased
What is the pattern of how drugs move through the body compartments?
plasma/blood -> extracellular -> tissue/fat or intracellular