Athanassios Iliadis
Department of Pharmacokinetics, School of Pharmacy, 27, bd. Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille, Cedex 5, France
APIS is a software package based on mathematical modelling which provides a reliable approach in optimising drug therapy. It was designed to assist clinicians in interpreting serum drug levels so that drug therapy may be better and more cost-effective. It is a methodological approach to describe, predict and control the kinetic behaviour of a drug. This software incorporates the principle of Bayesian procedures, i.e. one can use all available patient information (population) to determine patient-specific parameter estimates. These estimates can then be used either to design an optimal sampling protocol or to individualise drug regimen.
Initially, APIS was dedicated to individual PKs, with Bayesian estimation (using as prior the multivariate normal p.d.f), optimal sampling, adapted dosage computation as the principal functions of the software. Recently, a population menu was implemented allowing the operator to establish the prior p.d.f. according the classical two-stage method. The use of an information index (amount of information) enables one : 1°) to control the population dispersion and then, to choose the required number of individuals, and 2°) to detect outliers.
APIS may be used on any IBM compatible personal computer and it is menu driven to provide a very-friendly tool for analysing PK data. The Windows-Microsoft environment allows us to communicate with spreadsheets, word processing and other softwares running under Windows or to develop macro-commands to perform specific integrated functions. Technical facilities as on line-help, warning messages, measurement unit management and zoom on graphic simulation are also available.
Reference: PAGE 3 (1994) Abstr 840 [www.page-meeting.org/?abstract=840]
Poster: Software Demonstration