Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, Science Road, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
Int J Clin Pharm. 2013 Jun;35(3):344-58. doi: 10.1007/s11096-013-9749-0. Epub 2013 Jan 18.
Chronotherapy involves altering the timing of medication administration to improve the overall control of a disease and to minimise treatment side-effects, and is an emerging concept in the field of therapeutics.
The aim of this review is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the recent literature in order to identify and evaluate the evidence base for drug chronotherapy.
A literature search was conducted in three databases (Medline, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts) using the search terms "Chronotherapy", "Chronopharmacology", "Chronopharmacokinetics", "Chronopharmacodynamics", "Chronoefficacy", "Chronoformulation", "Morning and Evening", "Morning and Bedtime" and their combinations. The selection criteria for the inclusion of articles in the review included currency (years 2008-Aug 2011), publication in English language, studies done in Humans and non-review articles that pertained to 'drug' therapy.
Our search revealed a total of 192 journal articles, of which 41 articles were selected for review. The specific hypothesis for the effectiveness of chronotherapy that was tested in these 41 studies was chronoeffectiveness (n = 34), followed by chronopharmacokinetics (n = 5), chronomodulation (n = 3) and chronopharmacodynamics (n = 2). The findings from two-thirds (n = 27) of the reviewed studies, support the notion of chronotherapy.
The review presents the scope of chronotherapy in drug utilization. We believe that the knowledge of chronotherapy is growing and the current research for chronotherapy is promisingly in the conceptualization or early experimental phase. Going forward, chronotherapy studies should also explore genetic, gender and age related differences. Preliminary screening of new drugs for chronotherapeutic potential may be a way of enhancing quality use of medicines.
时间治疗学涉及改变药物给药时间，以改善疾病的整体控制并最大限度减少治疗副作用，这是治疗学领域的一个新兴概念。
本综述的目的是对最近的文献进行深入分析，以确定和评估药物时间治疗学的证据基础。
使用“时间治疗学”、“时间药理学”、“时间药代动力学”、“时间药效学”、“时间疗效”、“时间配方”、“早晚”和它们的组合等搜索词，在三个数据库（Medline、Embase、国际药学文摘）中进行文献检索。纳入综述的文章选择标准包括时效性（2008 年 8 月至 2011 年）、英文出版、人类研究和非综述文章，这些文章与“药物”治疗有关。
我们的搜索共显示了 192 篇期刊文章，其中 41 篇文章被选为综述。这 41 项研究中测试的时间治疗有效性的具体假设是时间疗效（n = 34），其次是时间药代动力学（n = 5）、时间调制（n = 3）和时间药效学（n = 2）。三分之二（n = 27）的综述研究结果支持时间治疗的概念。
该综述介绍了药物利用中时间治疗学的范围。我们认为，时间治疗学的知识正在不断发展，目前的时间治疗学研究在概念化或早期实验阶段很有前景。展望未来，时间治疗学研究还应探索遗传、性别和年龄相关的差异。对新药物进行时间治疗潜力的初步筛选可能是提高药物合理使用的一种方法。
