Individualizing drug dosage regimens: roles of population pharmacokinetic and dynamic models, Bayesian fitting, and adaptive control.

The role of population pharmacokinetic modeling is to store experience with drug behavior. The behavior of the model is then correlated with the clinical behavior of the patients studied, permitting selection of a specific serum level therapeutic goal that is based on each individual patient's need for the drug and on the risk of adverse reactions, both of which must be considered. A dosage regimen is then computed to achieve that goal with maximum precision. The patient should not run a greater risk of toxicity than is justified, and should obtain the maximum possible benefit within the acceptable risk. The regimen is given and the patient monitored.