A calculator program for adjusting aminoglycoside regimens that accounts for tissue accumulation in children and adolescents

The author has developed a program for the Hewlett Packard HP 41C calculator that is used in the analysis of aminoglycoside serum levels for the purpose of generating a personalized dosage regimen. Although other programs have been published, until now none has made adjustments in the half-life of drug elimination due to the tissue accumulation that occurs in the initial phases of dosing. Many of these same programs fail to locate the true peak and trough serum levels, which are essential in the calculation of the volume of distribution of the aminoglycosides. This article is not meant as a method of initial dosing, but rather assumes that the physician has chosen one of the readily usable methods of dosing, such as various nomograms. Patient data taken from published studies were used in generating individual patient parameters. These parameters were compared to those calculated in the studies for means of comparison. While correlation in all parameters was not ideal, the correlation of dose and dosing interval was exact and correlation of predicted peaks and troughs with the given regimen of dosing was excellent.