Toxicokinetics is essentially the study of “how a substance gets into the body and what happens to it in the body”. Four processes are involved in toxicokinetics. The study of the kinetics (movement) of chemicals was originally conducted with pharmaceuticals and thus the term pharmacokinetics became commonly used. In addition, toxicology studies were initially conducted with drugs. However, the science of toxicology has evolved to include environmental and occupational chemicals as well as drugs. Toxicokinetics is thus the appropriate term for the study of the kinetics of all toxic substances. Frequently the terms toxicokinetics , pharmacokinetics , or disposition may be found in the literature to have the same meaning. Disposition is often used in place of toxicokinetics to describe the time-course of movement of chemicals through the body (that is, how does the body dispose of a xenobiotic?). The disposition of a toxicant along with its’ biological reactivi...
