Adjustment of dosage of a renally excreted drug (or active metabolite) for patients with severe renal failure still causes some difficulties. It is therefore helpful to select, within a given therapeutic group of drugs, a compound that is particularly safe and easy to use and, if possible, does not require adjustment of dosage. This is ‘the drug of choice for renal patients’.Such a drug would ideally meet the following pharmacokinetic criteria: normal urinary excretion less than 30% of the administered dose, predominant biliary and intestinal removal, disposition essentially unaffected by parameters likely to be modified in renal failure (e.g. changes in serum proteins or fluid compartments: receptor sensitivity, etc), and pharmacokinetics not complicated by the formation of active or toxic metabolites that depend on urinary elimination. Above all, the drug should have a wide therapeutic margin and must be free of nephrotoxicity.Examples of drugs of choice for patients with impaired renal function are given for some important therapeutic groups and special emphasis is placed on antibiotics and &bgr;-adrenoceptor blocking agents.