Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Jun;398(6):6179-6191.
doi: 10.1007/s00210-025-03788-7. Epub 2025 Jan 10.

The clinical impact of chronopharmacology on current medicine

Mert Kaşkal  1 , Mustafa Sevim  2 , Gökay Ülker  3 , Caner Keleş  3 , Berna Terzioğlu Bebitoğlu  3
Affiliations
Review

The clinical impact of chronopharmacology on current medicine

Mert Kaşkal et al. Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol. 2025 Jun.

Abstract

One of the goals of clinical pharmacology is to optimize patient treatment by adopting new treatment strategies which will increase the efficacy of the treatment and decrease the adverse effects of the drugs. In the literature, it has shown that the effectiveness and toxicity of medications can vary significantly based on when they are administered, making timing a crucial factor in treatment plans. Chronopharmacology a relatively new branch of clinical pharmacology focuses on adjusting drug administration times to enhance patient outcomes. Chronopharmacology is largely influenced by an individual's circadian rhythm which refers to periodic changes in biological processes depending on the time of the day. The chronopharmacology influences clinical practice, and the accumulating knowledge in this field will likely lead healthcare providers to adopt new strategies for drug treatment regimens. This review aims to summarize the impact of chronopharmacology particularly on current clinical practices and highlight the latest findings related to chronophysiological mechanisms.

Keywords: Chronopharmacodynamics; Chronopharmacokinetics; Chronophysiology; Circadian rhythm; Personalized medicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Physiological effects and medication to adapt the possible effects of circadian rhythm. Created in BioRender. Sevim, M. (2024) https://BioRender.com/y55p401
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Abarca C, Albrecht U, Spanagel R (2002) Cocaine sensitization and reward are under the influence of circadian genes and rhythm. Proc Nat Acad Sci 99:9026–9030 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Agostino PV, Plano SA, Golombek DA (2008) Circadian and pharmacological regulation of casein kinase I in the hamster suprachiasmatic nucleus. J Gen 87:467–471 - PubMed
    1. Ala S, Akha O, Kashi Z, Asgari H, Bahar A, Sasanpour N (2015) Dose administration time from before breakfast to before dinner affect thyroid hormone levels? Caspian J Intern Med 6:134–140 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arjona A, Sarkar DK (2005) Circadian oscillations of clock genes, cytolytic factors, and cytokines in rat NK cells1. J Immunol 174:7618–7624 - PubMed
    1. Arjona A, Boyadjieva N, Sarkar DK (2004) Circadian rhythms of granzyme B, perforin, IFN-γ, and NK Cell cytolytic activity in the spleen: effects of chronic ethanol1. J Immunol 172:2811–2817 - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources