Officially over

Is finally over. I am finally done with my honours... at least for the writing part. There is still the presentation next time... but now is considered done. Yahooo

TDM vs TCI

Therapeutic drug monitoring refers to individualisation of dosage by maintaining the plasma drug concentration within the therapeutic window. The correlation between drug plasma concentration and desirable response is much better than the correlation between dosage and response. This is due the variability between individual patients in drug response. TDM is useful for drugs that have: - large pharmacokinetic variability - narrow therapeutic index - desired therapeutic effect difficult to monitor - used for prophylaxis Nonetheless, toxicity may occur within this "range" as this range provides the highest probability of beneficial response with the lowest probability of side effects. The therapeutic range is not individualised and the patients are treated according to the population range and not own response. It is more concerned with maintaining within the range than response. Target concentration intervention revise the dosage in order to obtain the best response. Initial loading dose and maintenance dose are calculate using the population pharmacokinetic parameters to achieve a target concentration. The plasma drug concentration is then measured and used to predict the individualised pharmacokinetic parameters for the patient. Based on the patient's response, a new target concentration is obtained and the dosage is adjusted accordingly. TCI accounts for inter-subject variability. Nevertheless, TDM is widely used in patient monitoring. It is a valuble tool in assessing the drug therapy and protecting against toxicity. p/s: This is what you get from not wanting to study but feel guilty for slacking too much. Haha.