COMMENTARY

PK-PD

Disentangling PK-PD in neonates

B Anderson

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
B Anderson
Department of Anaesthesiology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand; briana@adhb.govt.nz

---

A commentary on the paper by Allegaert et al

---

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Neonatal analgesia is a humane consideration, and paracetamol offers a reasonable alternative for mild to moderate pain. The investigation of propacetamol, an intravenous prodrug of paracetamol (acetaminophen), in premature neonates after intravenous administration has received scant attention. We might expect propacetamol to offer advantages clinically because a plasma target concentration can be rapidly attained and variability due to absorption kinetics and relative bioavailability is reduced. In addition, an intravenous drug offers a cleaner pharmacokinetic study that can further our knowledge of paracetamol pharmacokinetics in premature and term neonates.^1–5 Allegaert et al are to be congratulated for investigating propacetamol use in premature neonates. Neonatal pharmacokinetic studies are fraught with pitfalls.

Clearance often increases rapidly after birth (postnatal age) no matter what the gestational age at birth. This study gets around this by studying all infants in the first day of life and stratifies by gestational age. It is difficult to . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Anand, K. J. S., Anderson, B. J., Holford, N. H. G., Hall, R. W., Young, T., Shephard, B., Desai, N. S., Barton, B. A., for the NEOPAIN Trial Investigators Group, (2008). Morphine pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in preterm and term neonates: secondary results from the NEOPAIN trial. Br J Anaesth 101: 680-689 [Abstract] [Full Text]