Abstract
The objective is using saliva instead of plasma for pregabalin therapeutic drug monitoring
(TDM) since saliva reflects the free non–protein bound drug concentration, simple
and noninvasive sampling, cheaper and does not require the expertise of drawing blood.
Forty four patients participated in this study, two samples of saliva and another
two of blood were taken from each patient; first sample of both saliva and blood is
the trough sample and was taken just before the first dose of the day and second sample
is the peak sample and was taken 1 h after taking the first dose of the day. Descriptive
statistics and t-testing after log transformation were done using Excel, p-value=0.05
was adopted for significant difference. Optimized effective intestinal permeability
of pregabalin was estimated by PK-Sim program version 7. This study for the first
time revealed that pregabalin is excreted in saliva and classified as class 1 based
on Salivary Excretion Classification System (SECS). A good correlation of 0.71-0.83
between Cmin and Cmax of plasma and saliva pregabalin was observed respectively which
indicate that saliva sampling is a good alternative matrix for pregabalin TDM. C/D-ratios
were calculated to demonstrate pharmacokinetic variability of Pregabalin; the results
showed that C/D-ratio was higher in women, elderly and in those patients who had Scr.≥0.9 mg/dl.
Proposed pregabalin therapeutic ranges are 0.7 to 1.84 µg/ml in plasma and 0.055 to
0.145 µg/ml in saliva, for neuropathic pain, diabetic neuropathy and disc prolapse
patients.
Key words
Salivary Excretion Classification System - TDM - Pregabalin - Pk-Sim