ABSTRACT
The antibiotics amikacin and vancomycin have a narrow therapeutic index, serum concentrations correlate with efficacy and toxicity, and a wide interpatient variability in their pharmacokinetics exists. During theophylline therapy it is recommended that one monitor drug serum levels in smoking patients, during disease states, or when concurrent medications may alter theophylline pharmacokinetics. Abbott Laboratories has developed a new computer software package which allows designing dosage regimens of the drugs. This chapter validates this new pharmacokinetic system in routine clinical practice for amikacin, vancomycin, and theophylline. For amikacin and vancomycin the differences between predicted and observed concentrations were not statistically significant for both peak and trough levels.
