BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Despite the availability of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of vancomycin, vancomycin serum concentrations still do not reach therapeutic concentrations in many patients. Thus, we sought to systematically review the quality and consistency of recommendations for an international cohort of CPGs regarding vancomycin TDM. METHODS...

BACKGROUND Reports of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) for second-line medications to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) remain limited. METHODS A retrospective cohort from the Virginia state tuberculosis (TB) registry, 2009-2014, was analyzed for TDM usage in MDR-TB. Drug concentrations, measured at time of estimated peak (Cmax), were compared to expected ranges. RESULTS Of 1...

An elderly woman with human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection developed short bowel syndrome as a result of extensive intestinal resection. Considering the possibility of poor absorption of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) was performed. A single-dose test of 6 ARVs (darunavir, ritonavir, lopinavir, etravirine, maraviroc, and raltegravir) did not provide informati...

BACKGROUND Precision medicine is becoming a major topic within the medical community and is gaining traction as a standard approach in many disciplines. This approach typically revolves around the use of a patient's genetic makeup to allow the physician to choose the appropriate course of treatment. In many cases the genetic information directs the drug to be used to treat the patient. In other...

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) or the measurement of drug concentrations in plasma, serum or blood, aims to improve clinical activity, avoid toxicity, and reduce the costs of drug treatment. Specific conditions for TDM to be reasonably applied include the availability of a validated assay, a considerable interindividual pharmacokinetic variability, a high correlation between drug concentrati...

The dose-response relationship for antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) varies enormously between and within individual patients. Variations are caused by a variety of factors, including poor dose-concentration correlations, metabolic variations due to age, physiologic status, disease, and concomitant medications. Consequently, there is a rationale for establishing an individualized reference concentrati...

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an ultrasensitive analytical technique with molecular specificity, making it an ideal candidate for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). However, in critical diagnostic media including blood, nonspecific protein adsorption coupled with weak surface affinities and small Raman activities of many analytes hinder the TDM application of SERS. Here we repor...

BACKGROUND Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has reduced morbidity and mortality in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Studies have documented high interindividual variability in the pharmacokinetics of antiretroviral drugs, which may impair the success of HAART if not managed properly. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is a useful diagnostic tool that helps c...