Launch of guide to the use of drug level monitoring

To clarify situations when TDM may add benefit that were highlighted in the roundtable session, the organisers of the meeting launched a new resource tool entitled “Optimising TDM in HIV Clinical Care”. This guide to utilising TDM was developed by the Editorial Board of the HIVPharmacology.com website, a specialist information site committed to reporting advances in HIV pharmacology and supporting clinicians in the application of pharmacological concepts.

The guide is a pocket-sized reference document aimed at clinicians interested in integrating TDM into their patient care. It highlights specific indications for TDM including special patient groups and a helpful step-by-step guide to performing TDM. The guide provides recommendations for using TDM to manage co-infections or drug-drug interactions that might complicate therapy. In special groups such as paediatric patients or pregnant women, TDM may be particularly helpful in identifying the treatment programmes best suited to individual patient’s needs.

Dr David Burger, from the University Hospital Nijmegen, the Netherlands, a leading advocate for pharmacologic monitoring of antiretroviral drugs and responsible for pioneering research in this area, advises physicians: “The level of inter-patient variability that we observe for some drugs can be striking and interactions between medications mean that the potential for patients to receive suboptimal levels cannot be overlooked. We can no longer assume that one dose fits all.”