An Audit to Evaluate Vancomycin Therapeutic Drug Monitoring in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Background: Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is routinely used for optimization of vancomycin therapy, because of exposure-related efficacy and toxicity, in addition to significant variability in pharmacokinetics, which leads to unpredictable drug exposure.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate target attainment and TDM of vancomycin in neonates.

Methods: The authors conducted a retrospective study and collected data from medical records of all neonates who received vancomycin therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit between January 2019 and December 2019. The primary outcome was the proportion of vancomycin courses that reached target trough concentrations of 10–20 mg/L based on appropriate TDM samples collection. Secondary outcomes included proportion of courses with appropriate dose and dose frequency, and proportion of patients who achieved target concentrations after the first dose adjustment.

Results: In total, 69 patients were included, with 129 vancomycin courses. The median initial vancomycin trough concentration was 12 (range: 4–36) mg/L. The target trough concentration was achieved in 75% of courses after the initial dose with appropriate TDM, and 84% of courses after TDM-guided dose adjustments. Patients were dosed appropriately in 121/129 courses and TDM was performed correctly according to protocol in 51/93 courses. A dose adjustment was performed in 18/29 courses, to increase target attainment.

Conclusions: This study showed that there is a need for an increase in dose to improve target attainment. There is also a need to explore more effective TDM strategies to increase the proportion of neonatal patients attaining vancomycin target trough concentrations.