Naloxone Half-Life

Excerpt

To the editor: The paper on naloxone by Dr. Martin (Ann Intern Med 85:765-768, 1976) states on page 767, "Naloxone has a relatively short duration of action. The serum half-life of naloxone is just over an hour (17) and the half-life of commonly used clinical doses may be only several hours (18, 19)."

By definition, the half-life of any substance X is constant and most certainly does not depend on the initial dose. This is such a serious conceptual error that it undermines my confidence in the whole paper.