Recent developments in pharmacokinetic modeling of perfluorocarbon emulsions

Perfluorocarbon (PFC) emulsions are potential oxygen carriers. This study is to investigate pharmacokinetic compartment models and physiologically based models, which correlate the distribution of PFC emulsion in the blood, reticuloendothelial system (RES) tissues and non-RES tissues with the excretion data. The models are evaluated by nonlinear regression analysis (using PCNONLIN software) with expiration data from animal following an i.v. injection of a concentrated perflubron emulsion. One model with four compartments (representing PFC emulsion in blood, RES tissues, non-RES tissues, and PFC solubilized in blood) meets the mathematical and physical criteria. The physiological modeling provides insight of physiological mechanisms. The relationship between the compartment model parameters (rate constants) and physiological parameters (tissue volumes, flow rates, etc.) is presented. An advantage of physiological model is that prediction may be made in interspecies scaling. The above two kinds of modeling are useful in many applications, e.g. to describe and predict the time course of PFC disposition throughout the body.