Review on correlation between pharmacologic response and drug disposition

It is generally accepted that there is some type of correlation between the amount of drug in the body, or the concentration at the target site, and the pharmacologic or clinical response. This assumption becomes even more important with the increasing use of blood level measurement in monitoring of drug therapy. Whereas much information is available on the pharmacokinetics of drugs, few studies are concerned with the establishment of a correlation between disposition and response. The purpose of this review is to summarize the attempts made in this regard. Only those drugs for which a pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationship can be demonstrated are candidates for optimization of drug therapy through drug level monitoring and pharmacokinetic dosage regimen design.