Development of a Multicompartment Permeability-Limited Lung PBPK Model and Its Application in Predicting Pulmonary Pharmacokinetics of Antituberculosis Drugs

On Friday 15th, Klaus Romero from the Critical Path Institute, Arizona, will be giving a talk about his work modelling the pharmacokinetics of anti tuberculosis drugs. The talk will be at 12.45 in the Lucas room (LG81).

http://cmmid.lshtm.ac.uk/seminars/

Achieving sufficient concentrations of antituberculosis (TB) drugs in pulmonary tissue at the optimum time is still a challenge in developing therapeutic regimens for TB. A physiologically based pharmacokinetic model incorporating a multicompartment permeability-limited lung model was developed and used to simulate plasma and pulmonary concentrations of seven drugs. Passive permeability of drugs within the lung was predicted using an in vitro-in vivo extrapolation approach. Simulated epithelial lining fluid (ELF):plasma concentration ratios showed reasonable agreement with observed clinical data for rifampicin, isoniazid, ethambutol, and erythromycin. For clarithromycin, itraconazole and pyrazinamide the observed ELF:plasma ratios were significantly underpredicted. Sensitivity analyses showed that changing ELF pH or introducing efflux transporter activity between lung tissue and ELF can alter the ELF:plasma concentration ratios. The described model has shown utility in predicting the lung pharmacokinetics of anti-TB drugs and provides a framework for predicting pulmonary concentrations of novel anti-TB drugs.