Simulation for the analysis of distorted pharmacodynamic data

A simulation study was conducted to compare the performance of alternative approaches for analyzing the distorted pharmacodynamic data. The pharmacodynamic data were assumed to be obtained from the natriurertic peptide-type drug, where the diuretic effect arises from the hyperbolic (Emax) dose-response model and is biased by the dose-dependent hypotensive effect. The nonlinear mixed effect model (NONMEM) method enabled assessment of the effects of hemodynamics on the diuretic effects and also quantification of intrinsic diuretic activities, but the standard two-stage (STS) and naive pooled data (NPD) methods did not give accurate estimates. Both the STS and the NONMEM methods performed well for unbiased data arising from a one-compartment model with saturable (Michaelis-Menten) elimination, whereas the NPD method resulted in inaccurate estimates. The findings suggest that nonlinearity and/or bias problems result in poor estimation by NPD and STS analyses and that the NONMEM method is useful for analyzing such nonlinear and distorted pharmacodynamic data.