ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the general principles of pharmacodynamics (PD) with specific applications to cardiovascular drugs and the advantages of linking this information to (PK) principles. There may be more information on the PK-PD relationships of cardiovascular drugs such as digoxin, beta-blockers, and antiarrhythmic agents than any other group of drugs. While it is possible to readily measure several different cardiovascular effects, they are often only surrogate effects which may or may not be good predictors of the ultimate therapeutic response that is sought. R. L. Galeazzi reported that saliva concentrations of procainamide were better than plasma concentrations in predicting the time course of QT interval prolongation on the electrocardiogram. There are several cardiovascular drugs for which the relationship between plasma drug concentration and pharmacologic effect may not be a direct one. Combinations of cardiovascular drugs are commonly used for the therapy of essential hypertension, angina pectoris, heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, and hyperlipidemias.
