U.S. National Library of Medicine

1. Area Under Curve

   A statistical means of summarizing information from a series of measurements on one individual. It is frequently used in clinical pharmacology where the AUC from serum levels can be interpreted as the total uptake of whatever has been administered. As a plot of the concentration of a drug against time, after a single dose of medicine, producing a standard shape curve, it is a means of comparing the bioavailability of the same drug made by different companies. (From Winslade, Dictionary of Clinical Research, 1992)