Fractional dynamics pharmacokinetics–pharmacodynamic models

Abstract

While an increasing number of fractional order integrals and differential equations applications have been reported in the physics, signal processing, engineering and bioengineering literatures, little attention has been paid to this class of models in the pharmacokinetics–pharmacodynamic (PKPD) literature. One of the reasons is computational: while the analytical solution of fractional differential equations is available in special cases, it this turns out that even the simplest PKPD models that can be constructed using fractional calculus do not allow an analytical solution. In this paper, we first introduce new families of PKPD models incorporating fractional order integrals and differential equations, and, second, exemplify and investigate their qualitative behavior. The families represent extensions of frequently used PK link and PD direct and indirect action models, using the tools of fractional calculus. In addition the PD models can be a function of a variable, the active drug, which can smoothly transition from concentration to exposure, to hyper-exposure, according to a fractional integral transformation. To investigate the behavior of the models we propose, we implement numerical algorithms for fractional integration and for the numerical solution of a system of fractional differential equations. For simplicity, in our investigation we concentrate on the pharmacodynamic side of the models, assuming standard (integer order) pharmacokinetics.