Age dependence of the early-phase pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin.

By gathering the results that we had obtained on the pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin in 37 patients, we observed a correlation between the early clearance of this drug and the age of the patients, the youngest patients having the highest clearances. The data presented by another group (Piazza et al., Cancer Treat. Rep., 64: 845-854, 1980) allow calculations leading to the same findings. In view of the clinical importance of the first phase of the kinetics of doxorubicin, which is in agreement with cellular pharmacology observations, we propose an age-dependent modulation of the dose of doxorubicin injected in patients.