Is Bodyweight-Based Dosing Truly Better Than Flat Dosing for Panitumumab? [Letter]

Abstract

Jeroen JMA Hendrikx,1– 3 Jos H Beijnen,1 Alwin DR Huitema1– 3 1Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 2Department of Nuclear Medicine, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 3Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The NetherlandsCorrespondence: Jeroen JMA HendrikxDepartment of Pharmacy & Pharmacology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, Amsterdam 1006 BE, The NetherlandsTel [phone]Email [email protected] With great interest we read the paper by Liao et al in which they compared a 2-weekly bodyweight-based (6 mg/kg) and fixed (480 mg) administration of panitumumab, a monoclonal antibody (Mab) binding the  EGFR receptor.1 The authors used a population pharmacokinetics model to simulate pharmacokinetics of 1200 virtual individuals for each strategy. The observed interpatient variability in mean simulated AUC (CVAUCmean) was compared and was 34% (fixed dosing) versus 29% (bodyweight- based dosing). Based on this, the authors concluded for panitumumab that “body weight-based approach is the recommended patient dosing strategy”.    View the original paper by Liao and colleagues