Pharmacokinetic modeling of plasma and cerebrospinal fluid methotrexate after high-dose intravenous infusion in children.

A pharmacokinetic study was performed in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients suffering from brain tumors to describe the disposition of methotrexate. An open three-compartment model was developed to fit together the data obtained in plasma and CSF. The pharmacokinetic parameters obtained by the model agreed with those obtained with classical analysis and the fitting correctly depicted the plasma and CSF concentration decays. According to the results, such a model could be applied to other anticancer drugs.