Learn pharmacokinetics
Ibuprofen pharmacokinetics simulator
One-compartment model with linear elimination. Pick a preset or enter your own values; everything recalculates as you type.
How ibuprofen moves through the body
Ibuprofen is well absorbed and strongly bound to plasma albumin, which keeps most of it in the bloodstream. Its apparent volume of distribution is small, about 0.15 L/kg, so each milligram produces a relatively high plasma concentration.
The half-life is about 2 hours. With eight-hourly dosing almost all of each dose is cleared before the next, so the curve looks like a series of separate peaks with very little accumulation.
It is cleared by liver metabolism and excreted by the kidneys as inactive metabolites. Try shortening the interval in the simulator to see how average exposure rises even though each peak looks similar.
Looking for ibuprofen abroad? See its brand names in every country.
Learn the concepts
Half-life
What elimination half-life means, how to calculate it from clearance and volume, and why it decides dosing frequency.
Steady state
Why repeated doses build up, why steady state takes about five half-lives, and what accumulation ratio means.
Area under the curve (AUC)
What AUC measures, how it relates to dose, bioavailability and clearance, and why vancomycin dosing now targets AUC.
Bioavailability
Oral bioavailability (F), first-pass metabolism, and why IV and oral doses of the same drug differ.
Loading dose
When and why a larger first dose is used, and how to calculate it from volume and target concentration.
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