Optimizing Dosing Regimens of Tacrolimus in Lung Transplant Recipients

Abstract

Tacrolimus, an immunosuppressant, is widely used to prevent rejection after transplantation. It has highly variable pharmacokinetics and a narrow therapeutic window. Therefore, there is a recognized need for Tacrolimus-personalized therapy. In solid organ transplantation, few lung transplants result in a lack of Tacrolimus data. To date, there has been little reliable reference to the elimination half-life of Tacrolimus in lung transplant recipients. In this paper, we construct a model based on an ordinary differential equation and a one-compartment model. It is scary to test the blood concentration of each patient in clinical trials. We present a piecewise nonlinear regression on the data of different patients to obtain the parameters of the ordinary differential equation. This study provides an approach to estimate the elimination half-life and therapeutic dose.