Abstract
Although immunosuppressive agents have been utilized extensively in a number of patient populations, little pharmacokinetic information has been available concerning the absorption and distribution of these compounds, and even less information has been available relating the efficacy and toxicity of these drugs to pharmacokinetic measurements. Studies in this area may be subsumed under the title immunopharmacokinetics which may be defined as the study of the rate processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of immunoregulating (immunosuppressive and immunostimulating) drugs and their corresponding immunologic efficacious or toxic responses (1). Studies in our laboratory over the past few years have concentrated on defining the immunopharmacokinetics of prednisone and prednisolone, the most commonly used immunosuppressive agents. Before attempting to relate the kinetics of these exogenous glucocorticoids to their immunosuppressive effects, we felt that it was necessary to accurately define the pharmacokinetics of these agents in both normal volunteers and the patient populations receiving the drug.
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© 1984 Plenum Press, New York
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Benet, L.Z., Legler, U.F., Frey, B.M., Frey, F.J., Tsang, S.Y. (1984). The Immunopharmacokinetics of Prednisone/Prednisolone. In: Benet, L.Z., Levy, G., Ferraiolo, B.L. (eds) Pharmacokinetics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2799-8_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2799-8_28
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