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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, January 2003, p. 118-123, Vol. 47, No. 1
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.1.118-123.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Internal Medicine Department,1 Clinical Pharmacy, Bicetre Hospital,2 Department of Infectious Diseases, St. Antoine Hospital, Assistance Publique-Hopitaux de Paris, Paris,3 Glaxo Wellcome Laboratory, Marly-le-Roi, France4
Received 2 January 2002/ Returned for modification 18 August 2002/ Accepted 6 October 2002
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Amprenavir is a potent HIV type 1 (HIV-1) protease inhibitor and is both a substrate and an inhibitor of cytochrome P450 3A4 (2). When amprenavir is coadministered with ritonavir, the amprenavir Cmin,ss and the area under the concentration-time curve over a dosing interval at steady state (AUCss) for amprenavir markedly increase, with variable effects on the maximum concentration (12). This allows patients to significantly reduce the number of amprenavir (Agenerase; GlaxoWellcome) capsules that they take each day when the drugs are coadministered. Conversely, the NNRTI efavirenz induces the metabolism of amprenavir, leading to decreased plasma amprenavir concentrations and a subsequent need to consider the use of increased doses of amprenavir by patients who take both compounds (7). However, previous studies have suggested that coadministration of amprenavir with ritonavir at either 100 or 200 mg twice daily (BID) can overcome the concentration-reducing effect of efavirenz (6; O. Degen, M. Kurowski, J. Van Lunzen, and H. J. Stellbrink, 1st Int. Workshop Clin. Pharmacol. HIV Ther., abstr. 2.12, 2000; S. Piscitelli, C. Bechtel, B. Sadler, and J. Falloon, 7th Conf. Retrovir. Opportun. Infect., abstr. 234, 2000).
The pharmacokinetics of amprenavir administered in combination with ritonavir BID were determined in HIV-1-infected patients treated with various stable antiretroviral combinations, whatever their immunological or virological status. This study included patients who received the same doses of amprenavir-ritonavir in combination with an NNRTI, efavirenz or nevirapine.
(Data from this study were presented in part at the 5th International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 22 to 26 October 2000 [C. Goujard et al., 5th Int. Congr. Drug Ther. HIV Infect., abstr. 182, 2000] and at the ASCPT Meeting, Orlando, Fla., 7 to 9 March 2001 [A. M. Taburet et al., ASCPT Meet., abstr. PII-63, 2001].)
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Patients were not included in the study if they were taking any other protease inhibitor or any drug which could interact significantly with cytochrome P450 3A4. Patients were ineligible for the study if they had general poor health or if they had experienced an acute illness in the week before the study. Patients with clinically active substance abuse or with clinically significant alcohol abuse were excluded from the study. Any predisposing condition that might have interfered with the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and/or excretion of drugs and any biological abnormalities of AIDS Clinical Trials Group grade 2 or above were recorded.
Study design. The Ethical Review Committee of Cochin Hospital, Paris, France, reviewed and approved the study protocol. The study lasted from 21 March 2000 to 24 May 2000 and was done in accordance with the version of the Declaration of Helsinki applicable at the time. This was an open-label, multiple-dose, descriptive study done in two clinical study units. Patients were screened as outpatients. At the screening visit (visit 1), a medical history was recorded for each patient. The investigator conducted a physical examination, measured vital signs, and took blood for standard hematological and blood chemistry assessments. Patients who were successfully screened continued their current treatments, which included amprenavir at 600 mg BID (four 150-mg soft gelatin capsules BID) and ritonavir at 100 mg BID (one 100-mg soft gelatin capsule BID). Patients also took nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and NNRTIs but not other protease inhibitors. Within 15 days of screening, patients went to one of the two clinical study units for visit 2. Between visits 1 and 2, patients kept a diary card to record the date and times at which they took their medications to assess adherence.
At visit 2, patients stayed at the clinical study unit for sampling over 10 h for pharmacokinetic analyses. Fasting patients took their morning dose 12 ± 2 h after they had taken their last dose on the previous day. On the morning of the visit, vital signs were measured and a blood sample was drawn for determination of the CD4+-cell count and the plasma HIV-1 RNA concentration. Adherence to the prescribed treatment was analyzed by inspection of patient diary cards. Blood samples for determination of plasma amprenavir and ritonavir concentrations were drawn before dosing and at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 h after dosing. Blood samples were drawn and placed in 5-ml dried heparinized Vacutainer tubes by standard technique. The date and exact time of each sample were recorded, and within 45 min of collection each sample was centrifuged at 2,400 x g for 10 min in a refrigerated (4°C) centrifuge to separate the plasma from cells. The plasma was then transferred to a labeled Nunc polypropylene storage tube, which was stored upright at -20°C or less.
Safety. Only serious adverse events related to study participation were recorded.
Pharmacokinetic measurements and analyses. Plasma amprenavir and ritonavir concentrations were determined by validated reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay methods with UV detection. After addition of internal standard and alkaline buffer to plasma samples, both drugs were isolated by liquid-liquid extraction. The internal standard for amprenavir quantification was 6,7-demethyl-2,3-di-(2-pyridyl)-quinoxaline. Abbott A86093.0 was used as an internal standard for the ritonavir assay. The chromatographic separations were accomplished with a C18 reversed-phase column (Lichrospher 100 RP-18 end-capped 125-4, 5-µm column; Merck) with a pH 7.5 mobile phase containing water-acetonitrile-sodium hydroxide-orthophosphoric acid-triethylamine (650/350/0.9/0.7/0.5; vol/vol/vol/vol/vol) for amprenavir and a mobile phase containing phosphate buffer (pH 5.6)-acetonitrile (550/450; vol/vol) for ritonavir. A washing step with hexane was included in the ritonavir assay to decrease the lower limit of quantification. Amprenavir and ritonavir were detected at 210 and 220 nm, respectively. HPLC data were collected with Shimadzu class LC 10A software. The methods were validated over concentration ranges of 40 to 8,390 ng/ml for amprenavir and 12.5 to 2,500 ng/ml for ritonavir. The limits of quantification were 40 ng/ml for amprenavir and 12.5 ng/ml for ritonavir. Calculated quality control concentrations of amprenavir were <10.8% of the nominal value. The interrun coefficients of variation of the quality controls ranged from 3.9 to 8.1% (n = 11). Quality control concentrations of ritonavir were <2.5% of the nominal value. The interrun coefficients of variation of the quality controls ranged from 3.7 to 11.2% (n = 7).
Pharmacokinetic analysis. Steady-state pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by noncompartmental methods. The steady-state maximum concentration in plasma (Cmax,ss) and the time to Cmax,ss (Tmax,ss) were taken from raw data. Cmin,ss, which corresponds to the concentration predosing, was taken from the raw data. The average area under the concentration-time curve from 0 to 10 h (AUC0-10) was calculated for all the patients by using a combination of linear (up) and logarithmic (down) trapezoidal methods. The AUCss for amprenavir was calculated by using the predose concentration as the value at 12 h because concentrations were not measured at 12 h postdosing and extrapolation was not possible for many patients. The AUCss for ritonavir was calculated by extrapolation whenever possible. The apparent oral clearance from plasma (CL/F) was also calculated.
Statistical methods. This was a descriptive study; the sample size was decided without use of a power calculation. The all-patient population contained all patients included in the study, and the pharmacokinetic population contained all patients for whom data on the pharmacokinetic parameters were evaluable.
All statistical analyses were conducted with data for the pharmacokinetic population by using SAS software (version 6.12; SAS Institute, Cary, N.C.). Cmax,ss, Cmin,ss, Tmax,ss, AUCss, AUC0-10, and CL/F were summarized by using descriptive statistics. Subgroup analyses were done for patients who received amprenavir-ritonavir plus efavirenz and patients who took amprenavir-ritonavir without an additional NNRTI. A linear regression calculation was used for correlation analysis.
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TABLE 1. Baseline characteristics for pharmacokinetic populationa
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Pharmacokinetic results. Median plasma amprenavir and ritonavir concentrations were higher in patients who took amprenavir and ritonavir without an NNRTI than in patients who took amprenavir and ritonavir plus efavirenz (Fig. 1).
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FIG. 1. Individual amprenavir (A) and ritonavir (B) concentration-time profiles for patients who received amprenavir at 600 mg BID plus ritonavir at 100 mg BID with (dotted lines) or without (solid lines) efavirenz at 600 mg once daily. APV, amprenavir; RTV; ritonavir; EFV, efavirenz.
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TABLE 2. Amprenavir pharmacokinetic parametersa
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FIG. 2. Individual amprenavir (A) and ritonavir (B) AUC0-10s for patients who were administered amprenavir at 600 mg BID and ritonavir at 100 mg BID in combination with nucleoside analogs or nucleoside analogs and efavirenz (n = 7). APV, amprenavir; RTV; ritonavir; EFV, efavirenz.
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TABLE 3. Ritonavir pharmacokinetic parametersa
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Safety. There were no serious adverse events in this study.
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Ritonavir improved the pharmacokinetic profile of amprenavir due mainly to its inhibition of CYP3A4 metabolism, as the inhibition of P glycoprotein, which is capable of pumping protease inhibitors across plasma membranes and out of target cells, appeared to be weak (5, 10, 13).
Unlike saquinavir, the first-pass effect in the gut appears to be minimal, as it was previously shown that grapefruit juice does not impair the pharmacokinetics of amprenavir (4). Ritonavir exerts its effect through inhibition of hepatic clearance. Thus, the selective effect of ritonavir on clearance has the benefit of increasing trough amprenavir concentrations, which are associated with antiretroviral activity. The lack of concomitant increases in peak concentrations avoids exposure of patients to higher maximum concentrations after drug coadministration.
Efavirenz and nevirapine are known inducers of cytochrome P450 enzymes (3). Consequently, our data show that the combination of efavirenz or nevirapine with an amprenavir and ritonavir regimen leads to a decrease in the amprenavir Cmin,ss, despite the potent inhibition of amprenavir metabolism by ritonavir. However, the Cmin,ss remained higher than that achieved after administration of the standard dose of amprenavir (1,200 mg BID).
Amprenavir is 90% bound to alpha 1 glycoprotein in plasma (2). The concentration of amprenavir required to inhibit the growth of wild-type HIV-1 by 50% (IC50), with adjustment for protein binding, was 0.146 µg/ml, as calculated by using 334 clinical isolates taken from protease inhibitor-naïve patients (D. Stein, B. Sadler, and M. Sale, 1st Int. Workshop Clin. Pharmacol. HIV Ther., abstr. 5.2, 2000). The Cmin,ss for viruses from our patients receiving amprenavir and ritonavir without efavirenz was over 13-fold higher than the amprenavir IC50 for wild-type virus, and the Cmin,ss for viruses from our patients receiving amprenavir and ritonavir plus efavirenz was over ninefold higher. The adjusted IC50 of amprenavir was 0.903 µg/ml when it was calculated for 284 clinical isolates from patients who had experienced virological failure after multiple prior treatment regimens that included a protease inhibitor (indinavir, nelfinavir, ritonavir, or saquinavir) (Stein et al., 1st Int. Workshop Clin. Pharmacol. HIV Ther., abstr. 5.2, 2000). The amprenavir Cmin,ss for patients receiving amprenavir and ritonavir with or without efavirenz in this study was at least twofold higher than the amprenavir IC50 measured for virus resistant to multiple protease inhibitors. Unfortunately, the concentration-effect relationship could not be assessed in our patients, as resistance tests were not scheduled when this pharmacokinetic study was designed. This accounts for the heterogeneity of the virological and immunological results at the time that this study was performed.
Plasma ritonavir concentrations were low and subtherapeutic, as the dose used in this study was only 100 mg BID and well below the doses used for antiretroviral activity (600 mg BID). A previous study with 10 HIV-1-infected patients who were administered ritonavir at 600 mg BID found the mean ± standard deviation ritonavir Cmin and Cmax to be 3.03 ± 2.13 and 11.2 ± 3.6 µg/ml, respectively (13). Furthermore, the adjusted IC90 of ritonavir for wild-type HIV-1 isolates is in the 2-µg/ml range. In comparison, the Cmin,ss and the Cmax,ss in our study were 0.15 and 0.95 µg/ml, respectively. In previous studies (1, 9), large interindividual variability in ritonavir pharmacokinetics was reported whether ritonavir at 100 mg BID was combined with indinavir, saquinavir, or amprenavir. An important point which needs further evaluation is the effect of food on the pharmacokinetics of a low dose of ritonavir. In our study, amprenavir and ritonavir were administered to fasted patients, as no food effect has been observed with amprenavir; in constrast, food was demonstrated to enhance the concentrations of ritonavir. This food effect could account for the discrepancies in the results between various studies. Higher ritonavir concentrations were recently reported when ritonavir was coadministered with indinavir and taken with a standard breakfast (1).
In conclusion, this study shows that coadministration of a reduced dose of amprenavir with a low dose of ritonavir results in amprenavir Cmin,sss that are markedly higher than the concentrations achieved with a standard amprenavir dose of 1,200 mg BID, with the added benefit of a reduction in the number of pills that a patient must take each day. The presence of ritonavir in combination with amprenavir counteracted, in part, the negative effect of efavirenz at the doses tested in this study. This amprenavir-ritonavir pharmacokinetic interaction could be beneficial as a salvage antiretroviral therapy in patients infected with multiresistant HIV strains. Additional studies are under way to explore the interaction of amprenavir and ritonavir, including the evaluation of increased doses of ritonavir in the presence of NNRTIs.
We thank Justin Cook for writing and editing assistance during preparation of the manuscript. We thank Abbott Laboratories for providing the ritonavir and the internal standard for the analytical assay.
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