2003 Volume 65 Issue 2 Pages 183-187
The clinical efficacy of cyclosporine (CYA) therapy for psoriasis has been well established. However, the side effects associated with the toxicity of CYA also remain a problem related to this therapy. It may therefore be necessary to determine the optimal CYA dosage based on TDM for psoriasis, in order to have more therapeutic success while reducing the occurrence of any adverse events. In this study, we investigated the possibility of using TDM as a therapeutic marker for treatment with CYA-MEPC (Neoral®) for psoriasis. Thirteen patients with psoriasis vulgaris were given 3.0mg/kg/day Neoral® twice per day. To determine the TDM dosages of Neoral®, we performed pharmacokinetic evaluations 12 hours after the administration of the drug, two times. The pharmacokinetic findings were closely similar in all patients. In addition, the pharmacokinetic findings observed between the first and second observations for TDM were also closely similar. A correlation was seen between the trough and AUC (the area under the curve) (r=0.83, P<0.01). These results suggest that the suitable use of Neoral® therapy using TDM thus appears to be highly appropriate for the treatment of psoriasis. Inaddition, the trough level was also found to possibly be a usefull marker for determining the optimal dosage of Neoralo® in the treatment of psoriasis.
