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Area under the curve for a medication's concentration - time graph


IBGeek

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Hello everyone!

As a part of my math ia, I am analysing the pharmacokinetic profile of a drug. A part of the pharmacokinetic profile involves finding the area under the curve of the medication's concentration - time graph. I think this area is meant to represent the total exposure of the drug to the paitent's body. This is what it says online as well. In other words, it would be the total amount of drug absorbed by the body. However, I'm not quite sure how this works, as the units used for the y axis (miligrams of the drug in each litre of drug - mg/L) are completely different from the x axis (time in hours or minutes). Multiplying these units would give you (mg*hr)/L. What does this mean?!

My question is: what would the area under the curve of a concentration - time graph represent? Please take a look at the picture below if you need a visual. (I found this picture online)

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Image result for pharmacokinetics area under the curve

bull_zpsbypzypnl.png

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Refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacokinetics

The wikipedia page gives a very good overview of what each component means. Area under the curve (AUC) is just it's own measurement of much how much and how long a drug remains active or present. AUC is it's own measurement, different from but related to mass or concentration or time.

The total amount of drug amount absorbed is hard to calculate, but the maximum amount of drug present is simply the maximum on the graph. Total amount absorbed neither maximum nor area, because the curve you provided is a difference of drug intake - drug absorbed. You can see that there is some delay between when a drug is taken vs when it is absorbed. 

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5 minutes ago, kw0573 said:

Refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacokinetics

The wikipedia page gives a very good overview of what each component means. Area under the curve (AUC) is just it's own measurement of much how much and how long a drug remains active or present. AUC is it's own measurement, different from but related to mass or concentration or time.

The total amount of drug amount absorbed is hard to calculate, but the maximum amount of drug present is simply the maximum on the graph. Total amount absorbed neither maximum nor area, because the curve you provided is a difference of drug intake - drug absorbed. You can see that there is some delay between when a drug is taken vs when it is absorbed. 

 

Thanks. So just to summarize, the area under the curve in the picture shown above is how long/how much a drug remains active or present. This is the amount that is available to the body to absorb (the amount it can potentially absorb). But the actual amount absorbed will actually be different (because it may not all be absorbed).

Am I correct?

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1 hour ago, IBGeek said:

Thanks. So just to summarize, the area under the curve in the picture shown above is how long/how much a drug remains active or present. This is the amount that is available to the body to absorb (the amount it can potentially absorb). But the actual amount absorbed will actually be different (because it may not all be absorbed).

Am I correct?

So I am not using the proper terms (see Wikipedia page above). But you get my idea. 

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