Pharmacokinetics and serum concentrations of antimycobacterial drugs in adult Turkish patients

Aylin Babalık, İsmail H. Ulus, Tülin Kuyucu, Hüseyin Arpağ, L. Dagyildiz, E. Çarpaner

The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease · 2013 · 18 citations · 0 references

Concepts

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To document the pharmacokinetics and serum concentrations of first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs in adult Turkish patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). DESIGN: Consenting 21 adult patients (aged 38 ± 4 years, 10 female and 11 male) with newly diagnosed active PTB participated in the study. Blood samples were collected 1, 2, 4, 6 and 24 h after simultaneous isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP), pyrazinamide (PZA) and ethambutol (EMB) ingestion. Serum concentration-time profiles, maximum serum concentrations, time to achieve maximum serum concentrations, the half-life and the areas under the serum concentration-time curve for each of the four drugs were determined. RESULTS: Wide variations in pharmacokinetic parameters were observed among patients. In respectively 8 (38%), 17 (81%), 3 (14%) and 1 (5%) patients, the maximum INH, RMP, PZA and EMB serum concentrations were below the accepted therapeutic concentrations. CONCLUSION: Our data show that the serum concentrations of anti-tuberculosis drugs varied considerably in the study patients. Therapeutic drug monitoring is necessary to identify patients with subtherapeutic INH and RMP serum concentrations.