Population Pharmacokinetic Analysis of Vancomycin in Patients with Solid or Hematological Malignancy in Relation to the Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Scores

Background and Objective It remains unclear whether sepsis in patients with malignancy interferes with the predictive performance of the dose-estimation formulas. The quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA) score can help identify patients with poor outcomes because of sepsis-associated organ damage. Vancomycin, an important antibiotic, treats systemic infections (sepsis) caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. We aimed to clarify whether including the qSOFA score in a standard population pharmacokinetic (PopPK) assessment may improve the predictive performance of vancomycin doses in patients with malignancy. Methods This was a retrospective, observational study. Serum vancomycin concentration–time datasets were obtained from the therapeutic drug monitoring records of St. Luke’s International Hospital (Tokyo, Japan) from January 2011 to August 2016. Clinical and laboratory data of the relevant patients were retrieved from electronic health records. PopPK analysis was performed using the NONMEM program, which includes creatinine clearance (CLCr), blood neutrophil counts, qSOFA scores, and type of malignancy as covariates. We examined the validity of the final PopPK model using bootstrapping, goodness-of-fit plots, and prediction-corrected visual predictive checks. Results Six hundred and eight blood samples were obtained from 325 patients. In the final PopPK model, the CLCr and qSOFA scores were selected as covariates of systemic vancomycin clearance ( p < 0.05): the population mean value was 2.8 (L/h). Regardless of the CLCr, a qSOFA score of greater than 1 was associated with an approximately 10% reduction in vancomycin clearance. Conclusions qSOFA scores might be an additional covariate to CLCr for estimating vancomycin concentrations with a PopPK model in patients with malignancy.