Personalization of drug dose thematic issue: introduction article.

Simple, but sufficiently exact, way to calculate appropriate drug dose for a patient is the one based on target average steady-state concentration and non-compartmental pharmacokinetic model. If target steady-state drug concentration and dosage interval are considered fixed, maintenance dose could be adjusted on the basis of expected changes of total drug clearance and bioavailability, while loading dose should be related to changes of volume of distribution and bioavailability. Relative increase or decrease of these pharmacokinetic parameters in regard to normal values in healthy persons is translated to relative (percentual) increase or decrease of maintenance and loading doses recommended in the drug monograph.