Purpose
Personalizing intravenous (IV) busulfan doses to a target plasma concentration at steady state (Css) is an essential component of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). We sought to develop a population pharmacokinetic model to predict IV busulfan doses over a wide age spectrum (0.1 – 66 years) that accounts for differences in age and body size.
Experimental design
A population pharmacokinetic model based on normal fat mass and maturation based on post-menstrual age was built from 12,380 busulfan concentration-time points obtained after IV busulfan administration in 1,610 HCT recipients. Subsequently, simulation results of the initial dose necessary to achieve a target Css with this model were compared with pediatric-only models.
Results
A two-compartment model with first-order elimination best fit the data. The population busulfan clearance was 12.4 L/h for an adult male with 62kg normal fat mass (equivalent to 70kg total body weight). Busulfan clearance, scaled to body size – specifically normal fat mass, is predicted to be 95% of the adult clearance at 2.5 years post-natal age. With a target Css of 770 ng/mL, a higher proportion of initial doses achieved the therapeutic window with this age- and size-dependent model (72%) compared to dosing recommended by the Food and Drug Administration (57%) or the European Medicines Agency (70%).
Conclusion
This is the first population pharmacokinetic model developed to predict initial IV busulfan doses and personalize to a target Css over a wide age spectrum, ranging from infants to adults.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.