Virtual modelling of compartmental pharmacokinetic systems

This paper presents an analysis of different methodologies for modelling pharmacokinetic systems under the context of a telemedicine system oriented to the on-line and personalized knowledge generation. We use a simplified 3-pool kinetic system for a better clarification of several relevant modelling formalisms. A more complete 3-pool urea kinetic model is built simply connecting EL components pertaining to a pharmacokinetic library previously developed. The evolution of the urea concentration during the dialysis of a patient provided by this model was compared successfully to the evolution computed by a 2-pool model experimentally validated. The 3-pool model provides more information regarding the interstice and a high capacity to be modified for attending to the knowledge needs of physicians, as well as biomedicine advances. As a major conclusion, our outcomes suggest that virtual modelling is an excellent methodology in biomedical engineering to support the on-line generation of personalized health knowledge for telemedicine systems. This is due to its capacity for reusing components at horizontal and vertical level, and for implementing multiformalism and multidomain models, what simplifies the task to represent complex physiological and artificial systems