100 cards
Pharmacology is the study of drugs and their effects on living organisms. It is traditionally divided into two complementary branches. Pharmacokinetics describes what the body does to a drug and is summarized by the acronym ADME: Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion. These four processes together determi...
Absorption is the movement of a drug from its site of administration into the bloodstream. The rate and extent of absorption depend on the route of administration, drug solubility, pH at the absorption site, blood flow, surface area, and the drug's formulation. Bioavailability refers to the fraction of an administered...
The half-life of a drug, denoted t½, is the time required for the plasma concentration of the drug to decrease by 50 percent, and it is one of the most clinically important pharmacokinetic parameters because it determines appropriate dosing frequency. After approximately four to five half-lives of repeated dosing, the...
Pharmacodynamics describes how a drug produces its effects at the molecular, cellular, and whole-organism level. The dose-response curve plots the drug dose on the x-axis against the magnitude of the response on the y-axis and allows two important properties to be visualized: potency, reflected by the position of the c...
A drug interaction occurs when one drug alters the activity of another. Pharmacokinetic interactions arise when absorption, distribution, metabolism, or excretion is altered, for example when one drug inhibits or induces a CYP450 enzyme and changes the blood levels of another. Pharmacodynamic interactions arise at the...
Antibiotics are drugs that either kill bacteria (bactericidal) or inhibit their growth (bacteriostatic), and they target structures or processes that are specific to bacteria, such as the cell wall, ribosomes, or DNA replication enzymes. Penicillins and cephalosporins are beta-lactam antibiotics that inhibit bacterial...
Antihypertensive drugs lower blood pressure through several distinct mechanisms, and the choice of agent often depends on patient comorbidities. ACE inhibitors such as lisinopril, enalapril, and ramipril block the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II, reducing vasoconstriction and aldosterone secretion, with c...
Drug development follows a structured sequence from laboratory research to general clinical use. Preclinical testing involves laboratory and animal studies to evaluate basic pharmacology and toxicology. Phase I clinical trials test safety, pharmacokinetics, and dosing in a small group of 20 to 100 healthy volunteers, i...