Clinical pharmacokinetics worksheet with answers

Free printable Clinical pharmacokinetics worksheet: 6 problems from easy to exam level, with an answer key. Print it or save it as a PDF.

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1.Easy
t/t½C/Css (%)100%597%

Practice exercise (made-up values, not clinical guidance). A patient starts regular doses of gentamicin, which has a half-life of 2 h. Using the rule that steady state is reached after about five half-lives, after how many hours tss is steady state reached?

t½ = 2 h
tss = h
2.Easy
t/t½C/Css (%)100%597%

Practice exercise (made-up values, not clinical guidance). A patient starts regular doses of theophylline, which has a half-life of 8 h. Using the rule that steady state is reached after about five half-lives, after how many hours tss is steady state reached?

t½ = 8 h
tss = h
3.Medium
110t (h)C (mg/L)C₀ = 8 mg/Lt½ = 2.5 hC₀/2

Practice exercise (made-up values, not clinical guidance). A patient receives an IV bolus of 100 mg of tobramycin. The level back-extrapolated to time zero is 8 mg/L and the half-life is 2.5 h. Find the volume of distribution Vd.

D = 100 mgC₀ = 8 mg/Lt½ = 2.5 h
Vd = L
4.Medium
110t (h)C (mg/L)1 h6 mg/L4 h2.1 mg/L

Practice exercise (made-up values, not clinical guidance). After an IV dose of gentamicin, the level is 6 mg/L at 1 h and 2.1 mg/L at 4 h. Assume first-order elimination. Find the elimination rate constant k.

C1 = 6 mg/L (1 h)C2 = 2.1 mg/L (4 h)
k = h⁻¹
5.Hard
0.1110100t (h)C (mg/L)Cpeak​ = 10τ = ?Ctrough​ = 1

Practice exercise (made-up values, not clinical guidance). A patient's tobramycin half-life is 2 h. The target is a peak of 10 mg/L and a trough of 1 mg/L. Assuming rapid IV doses and first-order elimination, what dosing interval τ lets the level fall from the peak to the trough? Round to one decimal place.

t½ = 2 hCpeak = 10 mg/LCtrough = 1 mg/L
τ = h
6.Hard
t (h)C (mg/L)Css​t = ?80%

Practice exercise (made-up values, not clinical guidance). A vancomycin infusion is started without a loading dose. The half-life in this patient is 10 h. How long t does it take to reach 80% of the steady-state level?

t½ = 10 h80% Css
t = h

Answer key

  1. 1. tss = 10 h
  2. 2. tss = 40 h
  3. 3. Vd = 12.5 L
  4. 4. k = 0.3499 h⁻¹
  5. 5. τ = 6.6 h
  6. 6. t = 23.22 h

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