Steady-state moxalactam pharmacokinetics in patients: noncompartmental versus two-compartmental analysis.

Moxalactam pharmacokinetics at steady state was examined in a group of 40 patients with presumed or proven abdominal sepsis. Mean steady-state serum concentrations ranged from 27.0 to 211.0 mcg/ml and correlated inversely with creatinine clearance (r = 0.91, p less than 0.0001). Terminal half-life ranged from 1.27 to 8.27 hr and reflected the varying renal function of the patients. Moxalactam total body clearance (CL) displayed excellent correlation with creatinine clearance as 92% (r2 x 100) of the variance in clearance could be accounted for by renal function (p less than 0.0001). Pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated using noncompartmental analysis based on statistical moment theory. Noncompartmentally determined CL was in agreement with CL determined by nonlinear least squares regression (r = 0.99, p less than 0.0001). Moxalactam total body clearance is best predicted from creatinine clearance corrected for body surface area.