If a drug does not have concentration-dependent killing, how will the dose-response curve look and what type of kinetics characterize it?

Study for the Pharmaceutics Drug Disposition Test. Prepare with flashcards and multiple choice questions, each answer has hints and explanations. Get set for your exam!

Concentration-dependent killing means the drug’s effect grows with higher concentrations. If that isn’t the case, increasing the dose won’t yield a greater effect, so the dose–response relationship becomes a flat line—the same effect regardless of dose within the tested range. The kinetics described is zero-order, where the body eliminates a constant amount of drug per unit time, independent of how much is present, typically because elimination pathways are saturated. So a drug with no concentration-dependent killing tends to show a horizontal dose–response together with zero-order elimination.