Extracorporeal respiratory support: breaking conventions?

Optimising drug dosing in patients receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

Optimal pharmacological management during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) involves more than administering drugs to reverse underlying disease. ECMO is a complex therapy that should be administered in a goal-directed manner to achieve therapeutic endpoints that allow reversal of disease and ECMO wean, minimisation of complications (treatment of complications when they do occur), early interruption of sedation and rehabilitation, maximising patient comfort and minimising risks of delirium. ECMO can alter both the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of administered drugs and our understanding of these alterations is still evolving. Based on available data it appears that modern ECMO circuitry probably has a less significant impact on PK when compared with critical illness itself. However, these findings need further confirmation in clinical population PK studies and such studies are underway. The altered PD associated with ECMO is less understood and more research is indicated. Until robust dosing guidelines become available, clinicians will have to rely on the principles of drug dosing in critically ill and known PK alterations induced by ECMO itself. This article summarises the PK alterations and makes preliminary recommendations on possible dosing approaches.

Can physicochemical properties of antimicrobials be used to predict their pharmacokinetics during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation? Illustrative data from ovine models

Introduction

Ex vivo experiments in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) circuits have identified octanol-water partition coefficient (logP, a marker of lipophilicity) and protein binding (PB) as key drug factors affecting pharmacokinetics (PK) during ECMO. Using ovine models, in this study we investigated whether these drug properties can be used to predict PK alterations of antimicrobial drugs during ECMO.

Methods

Single-dose PK sampling was performed in healthy sheep (HS, n = 7), healthy sheep on ECMO (E24H, n = 7) and sheep with smoke inhalation acute lung injury on ECMO (SE24H, n = 6). The sheep received eight study antimicrobials (ceftriaxone, gentamicin, meropenem, vancomycin, doripenem, ciprofloxacin, fluconazole, caspofungin) that exhibit varying degrees of logP and PB. Plasma drug concentrations were determined using validated chromatographic techniques. PK data obtained from a non-compartmental analysis were used in a linear regression model to predict PK parameters based on logP and PB.

Results

We found statistically significant differences in pH, haemodynamics, fluid balance and plasma proteins between the E24H and SE24H groups (p < 0.001). logP had a strong positive linear relationship with steady-state volume of distribution (V_ss) in both the E24H and SE24H groups (p < 0.001) but not in the HS group (p = 0.9) and no relationship with clearance (CL) in all study groups. Although we observed an increase in CL for highly PB drugs in ECMO sheep, PB exhibited a weaker negative linear relationship with both CL (HS, p = 0.01; E24H, p < 0.001; SE24H, p < 0.001) and V_ss (HS, p = 0.01; E24H, p = 0.004; SE24H, p =0.05) in the final model.

Conclusions

Lipophilic antimicrobials are likely to have an increased V_ss and decreased CL during ECMO. Protein-bound antimicrobial agents are likely to have reductions both in CL and V_ss during ECMO. The strong relationship between lipophilicity and V_ss seen in both the E24H and SE24H groups indicates circuit sequestration of lipophilic drugs. These findings highlight the importance of drug factors in predicting antimicrobial drug PK during ECMO and should be a consideration when performing and interpreting population PK studies.