© 2005 BMJ Publishing Group & Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
PERSPECTIVE
Pharmacokinetics
Isoniazid treatment of children: can genetics help guide treatment?
1 Australian Paediatric Pharmacology Research Unit, Royal Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia
2 Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Prof. K Mulholland
Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London), Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK; kim.mulholland@wch.org.au
Commentary on the paper by Schaaf et al (see page 614)
Keywords: isoniazid; pharmacokinetics; developing countries; child; tuberculosis
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Half of the world’s population are children, yet many of the most important developments in drug therapy ignore the needs of this most vulnerable population. With Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the cause of one of the most important chronic infectious diseases worldwide,1 it is gratifying to see research that describes the integration of modern molecular techniques to improve the delivery of the most important component of tuberculosis treatment for the world’s children. The study by Schaaf and colleagues,2 reported in this issue of the journal, focuses our attention on isoniazid therapy which is still the mainstay of tuberculosis therapy for both adults and children.
For most drugs, children need specific doses, usually defined in terms of body weight. Extrapolation of the dose from adult studies by body weight would result in the under-dosing of many drugs, as children are proportionally more efficient at clearing the drugs.3 Isoniazid is a good
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Arch. Dis. Child. 2005 90: 614-618.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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