Plasma clearance

Abstract

Plasma (total, systemic...) clearance is determined by all the individual metabolizing/eliminating organ clearances and involves mainly liver and kidney clearances. Plasma clearance (a volume per time, i.e. a flow) expresses the overall ability of the body to eliminate a drug by scaling the drug elimination rate (amount per time) by the corresponding plasma concentration level. The interpretation of plasma clearance and inter-species comparisons are made easier by computing the overall body extraction ratio (from 0 to 1), which is the ratio of the body clearance divided by cardiac output. Plasma clearance is the most important pharmacokinetic parameter because it is the only one which controls the overall drug exposure (for a given bioavailability) and it is the parameter which allows computation of the dosage required to maintain an average steady-state plasma concentration.