Sex Differences in Drug Disposition

Table 1

Suggested reasons for sex differences in adverse event reporting.

Reason for sex difference	Pharmacological reason	Pharmacological factors
Women are overdosed	Pharmacokinetics	Sex differences in volume of distribution; Sex differences in protein binding of drugs; Sex differences in transport, phase 1, and phase 2 metabolism
Women are more sensitive	Pharmacodynamics	Sex differences in drug targets; (i) receptor number; (ii) receptor binding; (iii) signal transduction following receptor binding
Women are prescribed multiple medications	Drug-drug interactions	Drug-drug induced alterations; Pharmacokinetics; Pharmacodynamics

(Table modified from Soldin and Mattison [5]).