General relationship between transit compartments and lifespan models

J Pharmacokinet Pharmacodyn. 2012 Aug;39(4):343-55. doi: 10.1007/s10928-012-9254-4. Epub 2012 Jun 23.

Abstract

Transit compartment models (TCM) are important tools in pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PKPD) modeling. In this work we investigate the relationship between TCMs with arbitrary initial values and lifespan models (LSM) with non-constant past and constant lifespan. We show that the total population in all transit compartments converges to a LSM, if the number of compartments n tends to infinity. The key to obtain this result is to establish a relationship between the initial values of the TCM and the non-constant past of the LSM. We apply the result to two already published PKPD models.

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Models, Biological*
  • Pharmacokinetics*