Use of computers in pharmacokinetics

Analogue, digital, and hybrid computers may be used in two principal ways in the analysis of data from pharmacokinetic studies: (1) for rapid numerical analysis of data and (2) for pharmacokinetic simulation. Simulation may be defined as the act of building a model of a system and observing its performance. In pharmacokinetics, the equations and models elaborated are always oversimplifications and their appropriateness can only be iudged by their ability to describe the observed data and the accuracy with which they make predictions of future observed data. Five examples are employed to illustrate the use of computers; the paths from the original observed data to the final answers are shown in detail. The examples are as folIows: (1) the relationship between the area under the lincomycin serum concentration curve and the dose of lincomycin administered intramuscularly; (2) the distribution of the half-lives of the antibiotics lincomycin and novobiocin; (3) prediction of multiple dose serum levels of lincomycin observed after constant rate intravenous infusions with an analogue computer; (4) the fitting of serum levels of tetracycline observed after a single oral dose with a two-term exponential equation; (5) simulation of serum levels produced by depointramuscular preparations of lincomycin with a digital computer.