Pharmacology Basics

Definitions

• Pharmacokinetics is what the body does to the drug
• Pharmocodynamics is what the drug does to the body
• It is convention in pharmacology to use plasma concentration
  • The relationship between the plasma concentration and blood concentration is given by the blood:plasma concentration ratio ($\lambda$):

$$\begin{array}{rl}\lambda & =\frac{\text{Drug concentration in whole blood}}{\text{Drug concentration in plasma}}=\frac{C_b}{C}\\ C_b& =\lambda \cdot C\end{array}$$