Pharmacokinetics describes the processes that take place in the interaction between an organism and a chemical substance. There are four processes, which are often also represented as five:
Liberation: the drug is released from the pharmaceutical formulation
Absorption: the substance enters the blood circulation.
Distribution: the substance disperses throughout the fluids and tissues of the body.
Metabolism (Biotransformation): the parent compound is transformed into daughter metabolites
Excretion: the metabolites are excreted from the body
Elimination can be split into Metabolism and Excretion, which then yields five rather than four processes.
© 2018 Christian Jonathan Haverkampf
