Closed-loop automated drug infusion regulator: A clinically translatable, closed-loop drug delivery system for personalized drug dosing

Med. 2024 Jul 12;5(7):780-796.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.medj.2024.03.020. Epub 2024 Apr 24.

Abstract

Background: Dosing of chemotherapies is often calculated according to the weight and/or height of the patient or equations derived from these, such as body surface area (BSA). Such calculations fail to capture intra- and interindividual pharmacokinetic variation, which can lead to order of magnitude variations in systemic chemotherapy levels and thus under- or overdosing of patients.

Methods: We designed and developed a closed-loop drug delivery system that can dynamically adjust its infusion rate to the patient to reach and maintain the drug's target concentration, regardless of a patient's pharmacokinetics (PK).

Findings: We demonstrate that closed-loop automated drug infusion regulator (CLAUDIA) can control the concentration of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in rabbits according to a range of concentration-time profiles (which could be useful in chronomodulated chemotherapy) and over a range of PK conditions that mimic the PK variability observed clinically. In one set of experiments, BSA-based dosing resulted in a concentration 7 times above the target range, while CLAUDIA keeps the concentration of 5-FU in or near the targeted range. Further, we demonstrate that CLAUDIA is cost effective compared to BSA-based dosing.

Conclusions: We anticipate that CLAUDIA could be rapidly translated to the clinic to enable physicians to control the plasma concentration of chemotherapy in their patients.

Funding: This work was supported by MIT's Karl van Tassel (1925) Career Development Professorship and Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Bridge Project, a partnership between the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.

Keywords: Foundational research; cancer; chemotherapy; closed-loop system; drug delivery; personalized dosing.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic / administration & dosage
  • Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic / pharmacokinetics
  • Drug Delivery Systems* / methods
  • Fluorouracil* / administration & dosage
  • Fluorouracil* / pharmacokinetics
  • Humans
  • Infusions, Intravenous
  • Precision Medicine* / methods
  • Rabbits

Substances

  • Fluorouracil
  • Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic