ABSTRACT
The rational use of drugs and the design of effective dosage regimens are facilitated by the appreciation of the central paradigm of clinical pharmacology that there is a defined relationship between the administered dose of a drug, the resulting drug concentrations in various body fluids and tissues, and the intensity of pharmacologic effects caused by these concentrations (Meibohm and Derendorf, 1997).Thisdose-exposure-response relationship and thus the dose of a drug required to achieve a certain effect are determined by the drug’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties (Fig. 1).
