Objective Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS)—a clinical entity of infants from in utero exposure to psychoactive xenobiotic and buprenorphine—has been successfully used to treat NAS. However, nothing is known about the pharmacokinetics (PK) of buprenorphine in neonates with NAS. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the population pharmacokinetic of sublingual buprenorphine in neonates with NAS. Design A retrospective population PK analysis of: (1) neonates with NAS treated with sublingual buprenorphine in randomized, double blinded clinical study and (2) data from healthy adults from a previously published pharmacokinetic study. Setting Neonatal intensive care unit and general clinical research unit. Patients Twenty-four neonates with NAS and five healthy adults. Interventions All participants received sublingual buprenorphine per study protocol. Measurements and Main Results A total of 303 PK data from 29 neonates and adults were used for model development. A population pharmacokinetic analysis was conducted using a first order conditional estimation with interaction in the NONMEM software program. A two-compartment linear PK model with first-order absorption process best described the pharmacokinetics of sublingual buprenorphine in neonates. The apparent clearance (CL) of buprenorphine was linearly related to body weight and matured with increasing age via two distinct saturated pathways. A typical neonate with NAS (body weight, 2.9 kg; postnatal age; 5.4 days) had a CL of 3.5 L/kg/hour and elimination half-life of 11 hours. Phenobarbital did not affect the clearance of buprenorphine compared to neonates of similar age and weight. Conclusions This is the first study to investigate the population PK of sublingual buprenorphine in neonatal NAS. To our knowledge, this is also the first report to describe the age-dependent changes of buprenorphine PK in this patient population. No buprenorphine dose adjustment is needed for neonates with NAS treated with buprenorphine and concurrent phenobarbital.
The management of high-dose methotrexate (MTX) therapy in patients with cancer depends on the routine monitoring of drug exposures in conjunction with leucovorin (LV), urine pH, patient hydration and other clinical indices of patient well-being. A key factor in patient oversight is the facilitation of MTX clearance in order to minimize drug-related toxicity. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the performance of a clinical decision support system and Bayesian forecasting algorithm in the prediction of MTX concentrations and assessment of LV dosing requirements in pediatric and young adult cancer patients based on the current practice at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Fifty patients ranging in age from 8 months to 21 years (weight range,7.6 to 163.3 kg) contributing 80 total dosing events (183 MTX serum concentrations) were studied. The forecasting model was able to consistently predict future MTX concentrations with the knowledge of one prior concentration and continued to improve with additional concentration data made available through daily therapeutic drug monitoring. Precision was good at 12.9% with low bias at 2.2%. Comparison between the decision support system recommendations for LV rescue relative to the actual LV administration was also made. Sixteen patients would have initiated rescue therapy earlier, 7 patients would have received a larger dose (42 smaller) and LV would have been given less often for 37 patients. The forecasting algorithm in the MTX dashboard was reasonably accurate in predicting MTX concentrations and should improve further as the underlying model and prediction algorithm evolves. This decision support system can be useful in helping physicians decide if a patient is clearing MTX as expected or if more aggressive rescue therapy is warranted.
ABSTRACT. This investigation evaluated the impact of potential drug interactions on the incidence of reported toxicities seen with common dosing patterns in children with cancer, with the intent of being able to screen and reduce the incidence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in the future. Toxicity reported in pediatric cancer patients treated at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia from 2004 to 2010 were abstracted from a cancer tumor registry and merged with drug order profiles from the medical record system. Analysis datasets were created in SAS and permutation algorithms were used to identify pairwise drug combinations associated with specific toxicity occurrence. Relative risk of toxicity based on dosing pattern was assessed via comparison to control patients. A total of 326 of 1,713 patients (19%) had reportable toxicities. Neutrophil count decreases and alanine aminotransferase increases represented the highest occurring, corresponding to 28.8% and 31.9% prevalence among patients reporting toxicity, respectively. Of coadministered drug pairs, acetaminophen-diphenhydramine occurred most frequently; however, methotrexate-vincristine was the highest occurring pair linked to a single toxicity (hepatotoxicity). Toxicity was highly associated with the diagnoses of leukemia (52.1%) or neuroblastoma (28.5%).Comparison of the dosing interval (≤30 versus >30 min) suggested that risk of toxicity can be associated with the timing of coadministration, with ≤30 min increasing the risk of hepatotoxicity with fentanylmidazolam and methotrexate-midazolam combinations. Knowledge of drug interactions in children with cancer may help reduce the incidence of ADRs by providing pharmacotherapy options that may reduce the likelihood of toxicity.
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