ABSTRACT
All drugs share the feature that they are formulated to have an effect on some body system. In oncology, that effect may be to shrink the size of a tumor, reduce the growth rate of the tumor, or protect noncancer cells from potentially harmful effects of the chemotherapy, to name a few examples. Pharmacokinetics (PK) is the study of what happens to drugs once they enter the body. The study of a drug’s PK will often entail drawing blood samples to measure the concentration of the compound, possibly along with metabolites, over time. In some instances, it is even possible to measure the amount of the drug or metabolite in the tumor tissue itself, such as in leukemia, or in the microenvironment in which the cancer resides, such as through the use of microdialysis (Brunner and Müller 2002).
