CC18 – Drug clearance

CC18. Drug clearance refers to the efficiency of drug elimination, defined as the ratio of the elimination rate (e.g., mg h^-1) to the concentration of drug in plasma (e.g., mg L^-1).

18.1. Drug clearance can be represented as the volume of plasma that would be completely cleared of drug per unit time (e.g., L h^-1).

18.2. Drug clearance is constant when drug elimination follows first-order kinetics.

18.3. Drug clearance can vary due to patient, drug and environmental factors (e.g., disease state and age-related physiological changes).

18.4. Overall drug clearance is the sum of hepatic clearance, renal clearance and clearance by other routes.