Prucalopride
Prescription high-affinity serotonin 5-HT4 receptor agonist that stimulates colonic motility and is approved for chronic idiopathic constipation in adults. It is well absorbed, distributes extensively, undergoes little metabolism, and is eliminated mainly unchanged in urine. The long plasma half-life supports once-daily dosing; renal impairment, not body weight alone, is the major exposure covariate.
Projected serum levels — 2 mg, once daily
Maintenance schedule: 2 mg once daily (oral).
Loading schedule: 3.9 mg on day 1, then 2 mg once daily — reaching therapeutic levels sooner.
Modeled steady state after ~3 days: peak ≈ 3.3 mg, trough ≈ 1.8 mg body load. Population-based estimate over 15 days for a 2 mg dose at a 70 kg reference body mass — the interactive app scales curves to your doses, timing, and body mass.
Key facts
- Category
- Gastrointestinal
- Route modeled
- Oral
- Model confidence
- inferred
- Half-life
- 24 h
- Common dose
- 2 mg
- Suggested maximum
- 20 mg/day
- Reference dose range
- 1–20 mg (single dose)
- Suggested cadence
- once daily
Research behind this entry
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Motegrity prescribing information
Regulatory synthesis establishes dose-proportional kinetics through 20 mg, greater than 90% oral bioavailability, 567 L steady-state distribution volume, approximately 24-hour half-life, minor metabolism, and…
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Comparative efficacy of drugs for the treatment of chronic constipation - quantitative information for medication guidelines
Model-based meta-analysis used 20 randomized studies with 9,998 participants. Prucalopride and several other prescription agents increased spontaneous and complete spontaneous bowel movements by broadly similar amounts,…
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The effect of prucalopride on the completion rate and polyp detection rate of colon capsule endoscopies
Matched nested cohort compared 203 colon-capsule examinations per group. Adding prucalopride was associated with higher completion (74.9% versus 56.7%; prevalence ratio 1.32, 95% CI 1.15-1.53) and faster transit. It was…
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Efficacy of drugs in chronic idiopathic constipation - a systematic review and network meta-analysis
Network meta-analysis of 33 randomized trials and 17,214 patients ranked prucalopride 2 mg first at 12 weeks for achieving at least three complete spontaneous bowel movements per week. Rankings are indirect, treatment…
5 published studies referenced in the app, each with a plain-language summary.