Home▸Medical Technology & Imaging Physics▸The Hepatic Portal Circulation and First-Pass Metabolism: Why Swallowing a Pill Is Not the Same as Injecting It

🩸 The Hepatic Portal Circulation and First-Pass Metabolism: Why Swallowing a Pill Is Not the Same as Injecting It

Explore the hepatic portal circulation, the detour that routes blood from the gut through the liver before it reaches the rest of the body, and see why this arrangement explains first-pass metabolism and oral drug dosing.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS

This simulator demonstrates how blood from the digestive organs is rerouted through the liver via the hepatic portal vein before reaching systemic circulation, and how that detour causes first-pass metabolism to reduce the effective dose of an orally administered drug.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Choose a route of administration, such as oral, sublingual, or injection, and adjust the drug dose to watch how much of it survives the liver's first pass and reaches systemic blood levels.

💡 Did You Know?

Grapefruit juice can inhibit some of the liver's first-pass metabolizing enzymes, which is why it can dangerously increase blood levels of certain oral medications.

⚙ Under the hood

physiologyhepatic portal veinliverpharmacologyfirst-pass metabolismbioavailabilitycirculatory systemdigestion

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install