Impact of Piperacillin Unbound Fraction Variability on Dosing
Recommendations in Critically Ill Patients
Abstract
A common approach to assess the efficacy of piperacillin is to firstly
measure the total concentration, and to afterwards apply a theoretical
unbound fraction of 70% to obtain the unbound concentration. However,
hypoalbuminemia is a common phenomenon in critically ill patients,
resulting in variations in unbound fraction. Therefore, we aimed to
simulate the impact of piperacillin unbound fraction fluctuations on the
predictive performance of a population pharmacokinetic model and on
dosing recommendations of piperacillin. Unbound factors of 70, 75, 80
and 85% were applied to total concentrations of piperacillin
administered by continuous infusion from an external dataset. A
validated model was used for assessment of predictive performance and to
estimate patient clearance. Dosing simulations were performed to
evaluate target attainment. Variation in unbound fraction caused minimal
impact on piperacillin clearance and target attainment but revealed to
influence model evaluation.