Oral and intravenous pharmacokinetics of milrinone in human volunteers

Abstract

Thirty-nine healthy men received milrinone either orally or intravenously in two separate double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. The mean bioavailability, based on the area under the plasma concentration versus time curves, was 0.92. The plasma data for those subjects in the intravenous study were described by an open two-compartment model with a mean (+/- SD) apparent first-order terminal elimination rate constant (beta) of 0.86 (+/- 0.23) h-1, which corresponds to a half-life of 0.8 h. In the intravenous study, the renal clearance and total body clearance were 21.1 and 25.9 L/h, respectively. The corresponding values in the oral study were 23.8 and 29.7 L/h. Between 79.9 and 84.5% of the total doses were recovered in the urine samples taken at 0-24 h.