Estimating marbofloxacin withdrawal time in broiler chickens using a population physiologically based pharmacokinetics model

Residue depletion of marbofloxacin in broiler chicken after oral administration at 5 mg/kg/day for three consecutive days was studied in this study. The areas under the concentration–time curve from 0 h to ∞ (AUC0–∞s) of marbofloxacin in tissues and plasma were used to calculate tissue/plasma partition coefficients (PXs). Based on PXs and the other parameters derived from published studies, a flow‐limited physiologically based pharmacokinetics (PBPK) model was developed to predict marbofloxacin concentrations, which were then compared with those derived from the residue depletion study so as to validate this model. Considering individual difference in drug disposition, a Monte Carlo simulation included 1000 iterations was further incorporated into the validated model to generate a population PBPK model and to estimate the marbofloxacin residue withdrawal times in edible tissues. The withdrawal periods were compared to those derived from linear regression analysis. The PBPK model presented here successfully predicted the measured concentrations in all tissues. The withdrawal times in all edible tissues derived from the population PBPK model were longer than those from linear regression analysis, and based on the residues in kidney, a withdrawal time of 4 days was estimated for marbofloxacin after oral administration at 5 mg/kg/day for three consecutive days. It was shown that population PBPK model could be used to accurately predict marbofloxacin residue withdrawal time in edible tissues in broiler chickens.