Table 1.

Comparison of maximum artemisinin detected in serum or plasma from orally ingested pure artemisinin, whole plant A. annua, or prepared tea

Drug delivery form	Dose per individual	Subject	Plasma/serum concentration Artemisinin Cmax (mg l−1)	Reference
Pure artemisinin	500 mg	Healthy human males	0.6	Dien et al. (1997)
	500 mg		0.3	de Vries and Dien (1996)
Tea extract
5 g dried leaves	57.5 mg	Healthy human males	0.2	Rath et al. (2004)
Pure artemisinin control	500 mg		0.5
Intragastric delivery in 1:9   dimethyl-acetamide-oila	10 mg kg−1 2.320 µg mouse−1	Rats	0.8	Li et al. (1998)
Whole plant-dried leaves	30.7 µg mouse−1	Mice	0.087	This study
Pure artemisinin control	30.7 µg mouse−1		Not detectable
Pure artemisinin control	1,400 µg mouse−1		≥0.074

^aDelivered as dihydroartemisinin

^bRat body weights ranged from 210–254 g; we used 232 as an average to calculate total µg delivered to each animal