ステロイド軟膏製剤の塗布量に関する新規基準の提案

抄録

Regarding the dose amount of steroid ointments, package inserts gives no precise direction and it is necessary to clearly determine the standard method for dose setting. For this purpose, a method called ‘Finger Tip Unit (FTU)’ has been proposed in a guideline for atopic dermatitis, but this method has some demerits that it assume the same caliber of ointment tubes' head among different drugs' formulations and also it does not consider inter-patients' variability of body surface area. In order to establish a new dose setting strategy instead of FTU, we propose a new standard method which is based on the calculated surface area of body regions that drugs are applied. This method uses the published data of age, body weight, height, and surface area ratio of each body region to whole body surface area. Consequently, an equation to calculate the length of ointment to be squeezed out of a tube is presented for each body region, and we also propose the length for a unit area which is useful for applying to small area on any body regions. These results would be useful in the points that it clearly determine dose amount of steroid ointments and also it lead to an improvement of patients' adherence as well as improving clinical efficacy of steroid ointments.