Pharmacokinetic and Adsorptive Analyses of Administration of Oral Voriconazole Suspension via Enteral Feeding Tube in Intensive Care Unit Patients.

For intensive care unit (ICU) patients, injectable voriconazole (VRCZ) is difficult to use because the patients often develop acute kidney injury. Since many ICU patients have consciousness disturbance, oral ingestion of tablet formulation is also difficult, and administration of a suspension via enteral feeding tube is required when using VRCZ. In this study, we investigated the in vitro adsorption property of oral VRCZ to feeding tube and performed pharmacokinetic analysis of VRCZ prepared by powdering and simple suspension for ICU patients. VRCZ was tube-administered to five ICU patients at a loading dose of 300 mg and plasma VRCZ concentrations before and at 1, 2, 4, 8, 12 h after the first dose were measured using HPLC. Pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by non-compartmental model analysis. The recovery rate of VRCZ after infusion of the suspension through feeding tube was 89.8 ± 8.3%, but the cumulative rates after the first and second re-infusion were 102.7 ± 20.7 and 99.3 ± 10.3%, respectively, suggesting almost no residual drug in the tube after re-infusion. Metabolic phenotype was extensive metabolizer (EM) in two patients and intermediate metabolizer (IM) in three patients. The values of total clearance (CLtot/F) calculated by moment analysis were 0.51 and 0.55 L/h/kg in two EM patients, and 0.09, 0.29 and 0.31 L/h/kg in three IM patients. The CLtot/F was apparently lower in IM patients compared to EM. In conclusion, powdered and suspended VRCZ administered via enteral feeding tube showed pharmacokinetics depending on CYP2C19 gene polymorphism, similar to that observed in usual oral administration.