Background: Voriconazole, a first-line agent for the treatment of invasive fungal infections, is mainly metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2C19. A significant portion of patients fail to achieve therapeutic voriconazole trough concentrations, with a consequently increased risk of therapeutic failure.
Objective: To show the association between subtherapeutic voriconazole concentrations and factors affecting voriconazole pharmacokinetics: CYP2C19 genotype and drug-drug interactions.
Methods: Adults receiving voriconazole for antifungal treatment or prophylaxis were included in a multicenter prospective study conducted in Spain. The prevalence of subtherapeutic voriconazole troughs was analyzed in the rapid metabolizer and ultra-rapid metabolizer patients (RMs and UMs, respectively), and compared with the rest of the patients. The relationship between voriconazole concentration, CYP2C19 phenotype, adverse events (AEs), and drug-drug interactions was also assessed.
Results: In this study 78 patients were included with a wide variability in voriconazole plasma levels with only 44.8% of patients attaining trough concentrations within the therapeutic range of 1 and 5.5 µg/ml. The allele frequency of *17 variant was found to be 29.5%. Compared with patients with other phenotypes, RMs and UMs had a lower voriconazole plasma concentration (RM/UM: 1.85 ± 0.24 µg/ml vs other phenotypes: 2.36 ± 0.26 µg/ml). Adverse events were more common in patients with higher voriconazole concentrations (p<0.05). No association between voriconazole trough concentration and other factors (age, weight, route of administration, and concomitant administration of enzyme inducer, enzyme inhibitor, glucocorticoids, or proton pump inhibitors) was found.
Conclusion: These results suggest the potential clinical utility of using CYP2C19 genotype-guided voriconazole dosing to achieve concentrations in the therapeutic range in the early course of therapy. Larger studies are needed to confirm the impact of pharmacogenetics on voriconazole pharmacokinetics.
Keywords: CYP2C19 polymorphism; pharmacogenetic; pharmacokinetic; therapeutic drug monitoring; voriconazole.
© 2019 Pharmacotherapy Publications, Inc.