Although therapeutic drugs are routinely used to treat Australian mammals, the dosages have largely been extrapolated from those used in domestic species.
However, Australian mammals have various anatomical and physiological adaptations to specialised diets and challenging environments. Consequently, Australian mammals may process and eliminate xenobiotics (a substance, typically a synthetic chemical, that is foreign to the body) at different rates compared with domestic species.
Therefore, therapeutic dosages extrapolated from domestic species may be suboptimal or even non-efficacious when administered to some Australian mammalian species. Additionally, some drugs administered to domestic animals (such as antibacterial drugs) may have life-threatening consequences when administered to some marsupials. The aim of this chapter is to review published studies of therapeutic drugs in Australian mammals and make suggestions to improve drug efficacy.1.
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