Bioassay for Determining Voriconazole Serum Levels in Patients Receiving Combination Therapy with Echinocandins

Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2015 Oct 26;60(1):632-6. doi: 10.1128/AAC.01688-15. Print 2016 Jan.

Abstract

Voriconazole levels were determined with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and a microbiological agar diffusion assay using a Candida parapsilosis isolate in 103 serum samples from an HPLC-tested external quality control program (n = 39), 21 patients receiving voriconazole monotherapy (n = 39), and 7 patients receiving combination therapy (n = 25). The results of the bioassay were correlated with the results obtained from the external quality control program samples and with the HPLC results in sera from patients on voriconazole monotherapy and on combination therapy with an echinocandin (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient [rs], > 0.93; mean ± standard error of the mean [SEM] % difference, <12% ± 3.8%).

MeSH terms

  • Antifungal Agents / administration & dosage
  • Antifungal Agents / blood*
  • Antifungal Agents / pharmacokinetics
  • Biological Assay*
  • Candida / drug effects
  • Candida / growth & development
  • Candidiasis / blood
  • Candidiasis / drug therapy*
  • Candidiasis / microbiology
  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid
  • Colony Count, Microbial
  • Drug Therapy, Combination
  • Echinocandins / administration & dosage*
  • Humans
  • Quality Control
  • Regression Analysis
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Voriconazole / administration & dosage
  • Voriconazole / blood*
  • Voriconazole / pharmacokinetics

Substances

  • Antifungal Agents
  • Echinocandins
  • Voriconazole

Grants and funding

This work received no funding.