Population Pharmacokinetics in Oncology and Its Clinical Applications.

Most traditional cytotoxic drugs are characterized by steep dose-response relationships and narrow therapeutic windows [...

Developing indicators for medication-related readmissions based on a Delphi consensus study.

Background: Medication-related readmissions challenge healthcare systems by burdening patients, increasing costs and straining resources. However, to date, there has been no consensus study on indicators for medication-related readmissions.

Objectives: This Delphi study aimed to develop a consensus-based set of indicators for detecting patients at risk of medication-related readmission.

Managing the COVID-19 health crisis: a survey of Swiss hospital pharmacies.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic strained healthcare systems immensely as of 2020. Switzerland's hospital pharmacies' responses during the first wave were surveyed with a view to improving the quality of pharmaceutical management in future health crises.

Methods: An online survey was sent to the heads of all of Switzerland's hospital pharmacies.

Precision Oncology by Point-of-Care Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Dosage Adjustment of Conventional Cytotoxic Chemotherapies: A Perspective.

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of conventional cytotoxic chemotherapies is strongly supported yet poorly implemented in daily practice in hospitals. Analytical methods for the quantification of cytotoxic drugs are instead widely presented in the scientific literature, while the use of these therapeutics is expected to keep going for longer. There are two main issues hindering the implementation of TDM: turnaround time, which is incompatible with the dosage profiles of these drugs, and exposure surrogate marker, namely total area under the curve (AUC).

From Personalized to Precision Medicine in Oncology: A Model-Based Dosing Approach to Optimize Achievement of Imatinib Target Exposure.

Imatinib is a targeted cancer therapy that has significantly improved the care of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). However, it has been shown that the recommended dosages of imatinib are associated with trough plasma concentration (Cmin) lower than the target value in many patients. The aims of this study were to design a novel model-based dosing approach for imatinib and to compare the performance of this method with that of other dosing methods.

Development and retrospective evaluation of a clinical decision support system for the efficient detection of drug-related problems by clinical pharmacists.

Background: Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) can help identify drug-related problems (DRPs). However, the alert specificity remains variable. Defining more relevant alerts for detecting DRPs would improve CDSS.

Full-scale simulations to improve disaster preparedness in hospital pharmacies.

Purpose: Assess whether full-scale simulation exercises improved hospital pharmacies' disaster preparedness.

Methods: Swiss hospital pharmacies performed successive full-scale simulation exercises at least four months apart. An interprofessional team created two scenarios, each representing credible regional-scale disasters involving approximately fifty casualties (a major road accident and a terrorist attack).

Pharmaceutical Interventions on Hospital Discharge Prescriptions: Prospective Observational Study Highlighting Challenges for Community Pharmacists.

Background: Transition between hospital and ambulatory care is a delicate step involving several healthcare professionals and presenting a considerable risk of drug-related problems.

Objective: To investigate pharmaceutical interventions made on hospital discharge prescriptions by community pharmacists.

Method: This observational, prospective study took place in 14 community pharmacies around a Swiss acute care hospital.

Dosing strategies of imipenem in neonates based on pharmacometric modelling and simulation.

Objectives: Imipenem is a broad-spectrum antibacterial agent used in critically ill neonates after failure of first-line treatments. Few studies have described imipenem disposition in this population. The objectives of our study were: (i) to characterize imipenem population pharmacokinetics (PK) in a cohort of neonates; and (ii) to conduct model-based simulations to evaluate the performance of six different dosing regimens aiming at optimizing PK target attainment.

Elevated acute phase proteins affect pharmacokinetics in COVID-19 trials: Lessons from the CounterCOVID - imatinib study.

This study aimed to determine whether published pharmacokinetic (PK) models can adequately predict the PK profile of imatinib in a new indication, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Total (bound + unbound) and unbound imatinib plasma concentrations obtained from 134 patients with COVID-19 participating in the CounterCovid study and from an historical dataset of 20 patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) and 85 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) were compared. Total imatinib area under the concentration time curve (AUC), maximum concentration (C ) and trough concentration (C ) were 2.