Analytical Solutions for the Developed Five-Compartment Pharmacokinetic Model

Main Article Content

Thanachok Mahahong
Teerapol Saleewong

Abstract

This study presents analytical solutions for a developed compartment pharmacokinetic model consisting of five compartments to describe the dynamics of drug concentration in the body, namely the absorption compartment, the central compartment representing the blood circulation system, the rapidly equilibrating tissue compartment, the slowly equilibrating tissue compartment, and the effect-site compartment. The model is formulated as a system of ordinary differential equations describing drug transfer and elimination between compartments. The analytical solution process is divided into three stages: (1) deriving the solution for the absorption compartment using the method of separation of variables, (2) analyzing the system of equations for the central and tissue compartments using eigenvalue analysis combined with the Laplace transform, and (3) obtaining the solution for the effect-site compartment using the method of undetermined coefficients. The results show that, upon applying the initial conditions, closed-form analytical solutions for drug concentrations in all compartments can be obtained. Although some solutions involve complex eigenvalues, they effectively characterize the dynamic behavior of the system. Furthermore, a numerical
example is presented using rate constant parameters consistent with ranges reported in the pharmacokinetic literature, and the concentration-time profiles for all compartments are illustrated using the derived closed-form solutions, demonstrating drug behavior that is consistent with pharmacokinetic theory. These analytical solutions serve as a fundamental framework for validating numerical solutions and supporting future pharmacokinetic model development.

Article Details

How to Cite
[1]
T. Mahahong and T. Saleewong, “Analytical Solutions for the Developed Five-Compartment Pharmacokinetic Model”, RMUTI Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 84–98, Apr. 2026.
Section
Research article

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