Guiding the starting dose of the once-daily formulation of tacrolimus in " adult renal transplant patients: a population approach.

Aims: The once-daily extended-release tacrolimus formulation (ER-Tac) has demonstrated similar efficacy and safety to the twice-daily immediate-release formulation (IR-Tac), but few population-based pharmacokinetic models have been developed in kidney transplant patients to optimize doses. Therefore, this study aimed i) at developing a population pharmacokinetic model for ER-Tac in adult kidney transplant patients ii) and identifying genetic factors and time-varying covariates predictive of pharmacokinetic variability to guide tacrolimus dosage during the early post-transplant period.

Methods: A total of 1,067 blood tacrolimus concentrations from 138 kidney transplant patients were analyzed.