Significance of individual adjustment of initial loading dosage of teicoplanin based on population pharmacokinetics

An initial loading dose of teicoplanin is required to reach the optimal trough concentration (≥10 μg/mL) rapidly. To attain the optimal teicoplanin concentration efficiently, an individual loading dose regimen based on population pharmacokinetics, in which the target trough concentration was set to 15 μg/mL, was defined. Among 70 patients, 33 patients received the individual loading dose regimen, 33 patients received the conventional loading dose regimen (200 mg or 400 mg every 12 h on Day 1 followed by 200 mg once daily) and 4 patients received no loading dose. The proportion of patients showing an optimal plasma concentration was 88% in the individual loading dose regimen but only 33% in the conventional loading dose regimen. No patient without a loading dose showed the optimal concentration. Both total loading dose and plasma concentration were significantly (P < 0.001) higher in the individual loading dose group than in the conventional loading dose group. Notably, the trough concentration was almost constant in patients with individual loading doses ranging from 800 mg to 1800 mg. These findings suggest that individual adjustment of the initial loading dose of teicoplanin is potentially useful to attain the optimal concentration rapidly.