Estimating time to steady state using the effective rate of drug accumulation

Unless all of a drug is eliminated during each dosing interval, the plasma concentrations within a dosing interval will increase until the time course of change in plasma concentrations becomes invariant from one dosing interval to the next, resulting in steady state. A simple method for estimating drug concentration time to steady state based on multiple dose area under the plasma concentration–time curve and effective rate of drug accumulation is presented. Several point estimates and confidence intervals for time to 90% of steady state are compared, and a recommendation is made on how to summarize and present the results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.