The University of New Mexico

New CPE Arrival

Title: The Fundamental Principles of Compartmental Pharmacokinetics Illustrated by Radiopharmaceuticals Commonly Used in Nuclear Medicine

Author: Raymond M. Reilly, PhD.

UAN: 0039-000-13-173-H04-P

CEUs: 0.4

Contact Hours: 4.0

Date Released: 7/3/2013

Expiration Date: 7/3/2015

Activity Type: Knowledge

Disclosure: Author has nothing to disclose

Objectives: The primary goal of this continuing education lesson is to demonstrate the application of commonly used pharmacokinetic methods of analysis to radiopharmaceuticals. A review of pharmacokinetics covering areas such as compartmental analysis, the effects of protein binding on pharmacokinetic parameters, and computerized methods for analyzing data is provided. Examples are given to illustrate the concepts and the pharmacokinetic characteristics of radiopharmaceuticals currently in clinical use in nuclear medicine.

Upon successful completion of this lesson, the reader should be able to:

  1. Describe the various types of compartmental pharmacokinetic models.
  2. Define various pharmacokinetic terms such as half-lives, volume of distribution, volume of distribution at steady state, systemic clearance, and renal clearance.
  3. When provided with a set of pharmacokinetic data for a radiopharmaceutical, calculate the values for various compartmental pharmacokinetic parameters such as distribution and elimination rate constants, half-lives, volumes of distribution, and systemic and renal clearance.
  4. Describe the differences between manual non-iterative curve fitting and computerized non-linear weighted least squares regression.
  5. Compare by statistical methods, two or more different pharmacokinetic models for fitting a set of pharmacokinetic data and determine the best model.