Table 1. Summary of published human pharmacokinetic data.

Paper	Participants	Dose of unithiol	Main findings
Maiorino 1991 33	10 male volunteers, aged 24”34 years, weighing 68”98 kg	300mg oral single dose	Absorbed unithiol is rapidly metabolised to disulphide forms. Cmax 11.9 µM, Tmax 3.7 hours, AUC 148 µM hours, half-life 9.1 hours (For total unithiol).
Hurlbut 1994 27	5 volunteers (4 male, 1 female), aged 24 to 32 years, weighing 49”93 kg	3 mg/kg intravenous single dose	Unithiol is rapidly transformed to disulphide forms (>80% within 15 minutes). Excretion is mostly in urine in disulphide form. Elimination half-life 1.8 hours for parent drug; 20 hours for total unithiol.
Maiorino 1996 34	4 male volunteers, aged 23 to 27 years, weighing 86”91 kg	300mg oral single dose	Majority of circulating unithiol (>60%) is plasma protein bound. Remaining drug is predominantly in disulphide form (>30%); remainder is unbound parent drug (<1%). Binds to albumin via disulphide complex. Majority of excreted drug is altered and in a disulphide form. Protein bound unithiol theorised to act as a reservoir of the drug and may prolong its activity.
Maiorino 1996 35	11 factory workers with occupational mercury exposure (7 male and 4 female), mean age 34 years.	300 mg oral single dose	Identified increased mercury excretion and propose using unithiol as a challenge test for identifying mercury poisoning – this approach has since been discredited. Not relevant to present study.

AUC, area under the curve; Cmax, maximum plasma concentration; Tmax, time to maximum concentration.