Table 1.
Demographics and characteristics of the patients in this study.
Fig 1.
A total of 79 tacrolimus concentration-time curves completed with data from the 31 study group patients.
The x-axis represents time points after oral administration of once-daily tacrolimus. The y-axis represents the whole-blood tacrolimus level. On most of the curves, blood tacrolimus concentrations rose to maximum levels (Cmax) at 2 hours post-administration and gradually decreased thereafter.
Fig 2.
Concentration-time curves of the study group patients at post-operative 1 week, 3 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 months.
The x-axis represents time points after oral administration of once-daily tacrolimus. The y-axis represents the whole-blood mean (SD) tacrolimus level. On most of the curves, blood tacrolimus concentrations rose to maximum levels (Cmax) at 2 hours post-administration and gradually decreased thereafter. Numbers of profiles at post-operative 1 week, 3 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 months were 22, 22, 16, and 19, respectively.
Table 2.
Predictive performances of the limited sampling equations for AUC with various sampling time points.
Fig 3.
Bland-Altman plots of predictive AUC on the x-axis versus residuals (differences between AUC0-12 and predictive AUC) on the y-axis.
The difference was largest for C0 and smallest for C6 for a one-point equation. The combinations of sampling points with C6 without C0 (C2 and C6, or C2, C4 and C6) were less variable.
Fig 4.
Scatter plots of predictive AUC on the x-axis versus measured AUC on the y-axis for the study group patients.
The predicted AUC estimated with a multiple regression equation provided the closest approximation to the actual value of AUC0-12 using three time points with C2, C4, and C6 (A), and two time points with C2 and C6 (B). Very high correlations were observed from a total of 79 tacrolimus concentration-time curves, as well as from those observed separately at the post-operative period 1 week, 3 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 months (A, B).
Fig 5.
A total of 17 tacrolimus concentration-time curves completed with data from the 5 validation group patients.
The x-axis represents time points after oral administration of once-daily tacrolimus. The y-axis represents the whole-blood tacrolimus level. Blood tacrolimus concentrations rose to Cmax at 2 hours post-administration and gradually decreased thereafter.
Fig 6.
Scatter plots of predictive AUC on the x-axis versus measured AUC on the y-axis.
The predicted AUC estimated with a multiple regression equation provided the closest approximation to the actual value of AUC0-12 using the three time points C2, C4, and C6, and almost exactly the same result was obtained using the two time points C2 and C6.