Abstract
This chapter discusses the perspectives of the relative importance of hepatic and extrahepatic drug metabolism. Foreign compounds are chemical agents interfering with biochemical reactions in living cells if they reach sufficient concentrations in the organism, but being not able to supply energy or to provide essential substances not synthesized in the body. The kidney and the biliary tract only permit the removal of sufficiently polar, water soluble drugs, but the overwhelming portion of these compounds is lipid soluble. Most of them, taken daily or produced continuously in the body, accumulate in the organism and achieve toxic levels if the liver had no capacity to convert lipid soluble metabolites. Many liver enzymes that fulfill this purpose are well known. They are more or less specific for lipid soluble endogenous compounds.
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