ABSORPTION

1. What is absorption

- Absorption is the process of a drug moving from its site of delivery into the
bloodstream. The chemical composition of a drug, as well as the environment into which
a drug is placed, work together to determine the rate and extent of drug absorption.

2. How does absorption work?

-Medicines are absorbed when they travel from the site of administration into the body's
circulation. A few of the most common ways to administer drugs are oral (such as
swallowing an aspirin tablet), intramuscular (getting a flu shot in an arm muscle),
subcutaneous (injecting insulin just under the skin), intravenous (receiving
chemotherapy through a vein) or transdermal (wearing a skin patch). Medicines taken
by mouth are shuttled via a special blood vessel leading from the digestive tract to the
liver, where a large amount of the medicine is broken down. Other routes of drug
administration bypass the liver, entering the bloodstream directly or via the skin or
lungs.

3. Why is it important?

- Absorption is a primary focus in drug developmentand medicinal chemistry, since the

drug must be absorbed before any medicinal effects can take place. Moreover, the
drug's pharmacokinetic profile can be easily and significantly changed by adjusting
factors that affect absorption.

4. What are the factors affecting absorption?

- Physiological factors

- Pharmaceutical

- Absorption of drug from non-per oral route.

DISTRIBUTION

1. What is distribution?

- process by which the drug reversibly leaves the site of administration and is distributed
throughout the tissue of the body.

-describe its the journey through the bloodstream to target cells and specific target
molecules within.

2. How does distribution work?

-this is the way drugs move through the blood stream, after being absorbed into it, or
injected into it. It rapidly circulate through the body, as blood recirculates, the drug
moves from the blood stream into the body tissue.

3. What is it Important?

-distribution is an important process which results in exposure of the target organ to the
drug. The initial phase is highly influenced by the amount of blood flow to various
organs and is responsible for the acute onset action of the drugs.

4. What are the factors affecting distribution?

- the way or how the drug interacts with the components of blood such as plasma
proteins.

-If the binds too tightly to these proteins, it will not be able to reach its target cells.

- depends on Anatomical barriers found in certain organs.

*Blood- brain barrier- prevents passage into the brain tissue

*blood-placenta barrier- that regulates which substance can pass from the blood stream
of a pregnant woman into the fetus.

*blood-testicular barrier- prevent many substance from reaching the male testes,
therefore making disorder of the testes difficult to treat.
METABOLISM

1. What is metabolism?

-Metabolism describes any chemical reaction that the drug may participate in, often
aimed in activating it and targeting it for excretion. Drug metabolism is the term used to
describe the biotransformation of pharmaceutical substances in the body so that they
can be eliminated more easily.

2. How does it works?

- Metabolism works by traveling it through the bloodstream it's highly likely to be

metabolized to some degree. These carry blood directly to the liver where they will be
metabolized, this is called the first pass effect referring to the first pass of a drug
through the liver and this will typically greatly reduce the bioavailability of a drug.

3. Why is it important

- metabolism is an important process in the body is usually to change the chemical

structure of the substance, to increase the ease with which it can be excreted from the
body.

4. What are the factors affecting metabolism?

The factors that affect the rate of metabolism include:

-a genetic predisposition

-chronic liver disorders

-advanced heart failure

-interactions with other concurrent medications

EXCRETION

1. Excretion is defined as a process whereby drugs or its remnants ecut the body
typically through urine or feces.

2. This is typically done through exhalation, sweating, urination and defacation. Kidneys
are heavily involved in the process as they must remive harmful substances from the
bloodstream. Some drugs are metabolized into gaseous form and thus easily exhaled,
some drugs are excreted through bile, a substance secreted by the liver to aid in
digestion. As bike is recirculated back to the liver via enterohepatic recirculation,
whereby most of the drug can be excreted by the kidneys and the rest will exit in the
form of feces. Glands that produce saliva and sweats can also promote excretion
through this method tends to be less effective.

3. Excretion is important in determining both the duration of any drug action and rate of
drug elimination, this method also maintain the required drug concentration in the
bloodstream and thus prevent intoxication.

4 Factors affecting Renal Excretion are the following :

-Physicochemical properties of drug

-Kidney state

-Plasma concentration of drug

-Urine pH

-Blood flow to the kidney

-Biological factors

-Drug interaction

-Disease state