First-order elimination
NCLEX-RN glossary · Pharmacological And Parenteral Therapies
Definition
A pharmacokinetic model where a constant percentage of a medication is cleared from the body per unit of time.
First-order elimination in plain English
Dictates the half-life of a drug and determines how long it takes for a medication to reach steady state or be cleared after discontinuation. The tempting mistake is confusing a constant percentage clearance with a constant rate clearance (e.g., assuming a fixed number of milligrams is cleared every hour).
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