Gastrointestinal tract drug absorption

Atovaquone is poorly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, but absorption is increased with a fatty meal. Excretion of the drug, mostly unchanged, occurs in the feces. The elimination half-life is 2 to 3 days. Low plasma levels persist for several weeks. Concurrent administration of metoclopramide, tetracycline, or rifampin reduces atovaquone plasma levels by 40 to 50%. 

Parenteral administration This route is applicable for drugs which are inactivated by gastrointestinal tract or absorption is poor when given orally or there is a urgency for fast response in small dose. Intramuscular, intravenous, or subcutaneous routes are commonly used. The intravenous injection (in aqueous solution) is introduced directly into the vein by which a rapid response is produced. The subcutaneous injection are given through the layer of skin, while intramuscular injection, introduced through the skin layer deep into the muscle. The nature of intramuscular injection may be in aqueous or oily solution/suspension form. The aqueous solution will be rapidly absorbed as compared to oily solution or suspension. So, the rate of absorption is dependent on the nature of the preparation. 

Binds with drugs in gastrointestinal tract, reducing absorption. 

Iron Binds with drugs in gastrointestinal tract, reducing absorption. Methyldopa [NE] Decreased methyldopa absorption. 

For a dmg administered orally, MRT is the sum of time spent in the gastrointestinal tract (mean absorption time) as well as time spent in the rest of the body. In the case of a one-compartment model drug, the mean absorption time is actually equal to the reciprocal of the absorption rate constant (Eq. A.55) and is, therefore, proportional to the absorption half life. For non-compartmental analysis, the mean absorption time is still a good indicator of the rate of drug absorption. In order to get an estimate of mean absorption time in the non-compartmental situation, the drug is administered both orally and intravenously to a subject. Then ... 

Drugs that are too highly hydrophilic are often absorbed rather poorly from the gastrointestinal tract. It is sometimes possible to circumvent this difficulty by preparing esters of such compounds so as to change their water lipid partition characteristics in order to enhance absorption. Once absorbed, the esters are cleaved by the numerous esterase enzymes in the bloodstream, releasing free drug. 

Other than the different approaches mentioned above, commercial packages such as GastroPlus (Simulations Plus, Lancaster, CA) [19] and IDEA (LionBioscience, Inc. Cambridge, MA) [19] are available to predict oral absorption and other pharmacokinetic properties. They are both based on the advanced compartmental absorption and transit (CAT) model [20], which incorporates the effects of drug moving through the gastrointestinal tract and its absorption into each compartment at the same time (see also Chapter 22). 

Fig. 8 Factors affecting the rate of absorption of drug from the gastrointestinal tract. (From Ref. 15.). 

Stirred tank models have been widely used in pharmaceutical research. They form the basis of the compartmental models of traditional and physiological pharmacokinetics and have also been used to describe drug bioconversion in the liver [1,2], drug absorption from the gastrointestinal tract [3], and the production of recombinant proteins in continuous flow fermenters [4], In this book, a more detailed development of stirred tank models can be found in Chapter 3, in which pharmacokinetic models are discussed by Dr. James Gallo. The conceptual and mathematical simplicity of stirred tank models ensures their continued use in pharmacokinetics and in other systems of pharmaceutical interest in which spatially uniform concentrations exist or can be assumed. 

In the example above, the solutions are assumed to be well stirred and mixed the aqueous resistance is negligible, and the membrane is the only transport barrier. However, in any real case, the solutions on both sides of the membrane become less and less stirred as they approach the surface of the membrane. The aqueous diffusion resistance, therefore, very often needs to be considered. For example, for very highly permeable drugs, the resistance to absorption from the gastrointestinal tract is mainly aqueous diffusion. In the section, we give a general solution to steady diffusion across a membrane with aqueous diffusion resistance [5],... 

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