Conjugative drug metabolism in liver transplant patients.

L IVER TRANSPLANTATION is a therapeutic option for a number of liver diseases. I While the kinetics of several drugs are known to be altered in liver disease, very little is known about drug kinetics in liver transplant patients. Since liver transplant patients receive multiple drugs, a thorough understanding of the kinetics of these agents is essential for optimization of drug therapy in this patient population. Previous studies from our laboratory have shown the oxidative drug-metabolizing capacity of the transplanted liver in clinically stable liver transplant patients to be similar to that of the normalliver,2 The objective of the present study was to characterize the conjugative drug metabolism of the liver in clincally stable liver transplant patients using acetaminophen (APA) as a model drug.