Utility of posaconazole therapeutic drug monitoring and assessment of plasma concentration threshold for effective prophylaxis of invasive fungal infections: a meta-analysis with trial sequential analysis

BACKGROUND: Posaconazole therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is increasingly used in clinical practice. However, the utility of posaconazole TDM and the target of posaconazole plasma concentration for clinical successful prophylaxis remain uncertain and controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate posaconazole exposure-response relationship and determine an optimum posaconazole concentration for prophylaxis against invasive fungal infections (IFIs). METHODS: Bibliographic databases were searched (from inception to September 2017) to select studies including the clinical outcomes below and above concentration cut-off value of 0.5 mg/L and 0.7 mg/L. The reliability of the results were evaluated with trial sequential analysis (TSA). RESULTS: Twenty-eight studies with 1930 patients included were analyzed. The results of our pooled analysis demonstrated that patients with posaconazole plasma concentrations over 0.5 mg/L were twice more likely to achieve successful responses compared with those with lower concentrations (odds ratio, OR = 1.98, 95% confidence interval, CI 1.09–3.58, P = 0.02) while the threshold, 0.7 mg/L showed no significant difference (OR = 1.84, 95% CI 0.94–3.63, P = 0.08). The TSA results showed that there was sufficient information to support these findings. CONCLUSIONS: An optimal posaconazole concentration target of 0.5 mg/L is suggested to ensure the clinical prophylactic efficacy and may help reduce the dosage and dose-dependent toxicity comparing with the target of 0.7 mg/L. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12879-018-3055-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.