Confidence Intervals for Ratios of AUC's in the Case of Serial Sampling : A Comparison of Seven Methods.

Abstract

Pharmacokinetic studies are commonly performed using the two-stage approach. The first stage involves estimation of pharmacokinetic parameters like the area under the concentration versus time curve (AUC) for each analysis subject separately and the second stage uses the individual parameter estimates for statistical inference. This two-stage approach is not applicable in sparse sampling situations where only one sample is available per analysis subject like in non-clinical in-vivo studies. In a serial sampling design only one sample is taken from each analysis subject. A simulation study was carried out to assess coverage, power and type I error of seven methods to construct two-sided 90% confidence intervals for ratios of two AUC's assessed in a serial sampling design, which can be used to assess bioequivalence in this parameter