The influence of lipid vehicles on the intestinal absorption of Ciclosporin was studied in vivo. The model takes into account the effect of the intestinal lipid digestion on the absorption after intraduodenal administration of [3H]Ciclosporin in olive oil or middle-chain triglyceride (MCT) to the bile duct-cannulated rat. Digested vehicles significantly promoted the absorption compared to nondigested vehicles. In the nondigested state, olive oil was a significantly better vehicle than MCT, whereas the difference between both lipids was only a trend in the digested state. Further studies with variants of this in vivo model should determine the influence of abnormalities of fat digestion and absorption on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of a drug with a low therapeutical index.