Variability of linezolid concentrations after standard dosing in critically ill patients: a prospective observational study

INTRODUCTION: Severe infections in intensive care patients show high morbidity and mortality rates. Linezolid is an antimicrobial drug frequently used in critically ill patients. Recent data indicates that there might be high variability of linezolid serum concentrations in intensive care patients receiving standard doses. This study was aimed to evaluate whether standard dosing of linezolid leads to therapeutic serum concentrations in critically ill patients. METHODS: In this prospective observational study, 30 critically ill adult patients with suspected infections received standard dosing of 600 mg linezolid intravenously twice a day. Over 4 days, multiple serum samples were obtained from each patient, in order to determine the linezolid concentrations by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. RESULTS: A high variability of serum linezolid concentrations was observed (range of area under the linezolid concentration time curve over 24 hours (AUC(24)) 50.1 to 453.9 mg/L, median 143.3 mg*h/L; range of trough concentrations (C(min)) < 0.13 to 14.49 mg/L, median 2.06 mg/L). Furthermore, potentially subtherapeutic linezolid concentrations over 24 hours and at single time points (defined according to the literature as AUC(24) < 200 mg*h/L and C(min) < 2 mg/L) were observed for 63% and 50% of the patients, respectively. Finally, potentially toxic levels (defined as AUC(24) > 400 mg*h/L and C(min) > 10 mg/L) were observed for 7 of the patients. CONCLUSIONS: A high variability of linezolid serum concentrations with a substantial percentage of potentially subtherapeutic levels was observed in intensive care patients. The findings suggest that therapeutic drug monitoring of linezolid might be helpful for adequate dosing of linezolid in critically ill patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01793012. Registered 24 January 2013.