Progress in medicinal chemistry, vol. 19. edited by g. p. ellis and g. b. west. elsevier biomedical press bv, amsterdam, the netherlands. 1982. 345 pp. 14 × 21 cm. price $93.50 (dfl. 220)

✍ Scribed by Iris H. Hall

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1983
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 138 KB
• Volume: 72
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-3549
• DOI: 10.1002/jps.2600720940

✦ Synopsis

The integral in Eq. 15 was evaluated numerically by a commonly used integration algorithm (4).

Special caution must be taken in applying a loading dose of a nonlinear drug. It may not be desirable to use a loading dose for a drug showing a narrow therapeutic index. However, in certain clinical situations it may be necessary to quickly establish high therapeutic levels by a loading dose. For example, the treatment of an epileptic emergency may call for an intravenous loading dose of phenytoin (5). The loading dose required for the method only needs to be slightly larger than a normal loading dose.' It should, therefore, not add much additional risk to the adminis-1 However, if the function g( 1 is well chosen, it can be used to extrapolate to required levels and a loading dose may not he required.

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tration of such a loading dose. The method may also be used in dosing adjustments requiring lower steady-state drug levels, in which case the drug level data needed to make the predictions may be obtained from the later part of the dosing period.