Principles of Medical Pharmacology

This is the Sixth Edition of a teaching text that has undergone continuous evolution and improvement since 1975. It has been extensively revised, enlarged and updated to reflect the latest research. The authors have "pre-tested" it in their own courses to ensure accessibility and clarity of presentation. Though aimed primarily at medical students, the text has also found wide acceptance in pharmacology courses for students in biological sciences, pharmacy and dentistry, and among practicing pharmacists and physicians.
The text covers all aspects of medical pharmacology, including a comprehensive discussion of the clinically important features of pharmacokinetics. It also provides a detailed treatment of topics that are often given less attention in similar texts, such as drug abuse and dependence, behavioral pharmacology, drug interactions, neonatal and geriatric pharmacology, and new drug development.
This new edition features a number of improvements over its predecessors. Each chapter in the systems pharmacology section now begins with a brief case history that is meant to stimulate the reader's interest by demonstrating the clinical relevance of basic pharmacology. New overview chapters and sections have been added on second messenger systems, and on the functional organization of the nervous, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and immune systems. The chapter on antiparasitic agents has been expanded to include organisms and drugs with relevance to many parts of the world. Extensive sections on current chemotherapy of HIV infection and AIDS along with discussions of new agents for drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria and cancer; inflammatory bowel disease; and genetics of drug metabolism appear for the first time in the Sixth Edition. Due attention has been paid to new drugs being tested in North America and Europe that will probably be on the market soon.