A population approach to characterise amisulpride pharmacokinetics in older people and Alzheimer’s disease

Introduction Current prescribing guidelines for the antipsychotic amisulpride are based largely on pharmacokinetic (PK) studies in young adults, and there is a relative absence of data on older patients, who are at greatest risk of developing adverse events. Methods This study aimed to develop a population PK model for amisulpride specifically in older people, by combining data from a richly sampled phase 1, single (50 mg) dose study in healthy older people (n = 20, 65–79 years), with a clinical dataset obtained during off label, low-dose (25–75 mg daily) amisulpride prescribing in older people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (n = 25, 69–92 years), as part of an observational study. Results After introducing a scaling factor based on body weight, age accounted for 20 % of the inter-individual variability in drug clearance (CL), resulting in a 54 % difference in CL between those aged 65 and those aged 85 years, and higher blood concentrations in older patients. Discussion These findings argue for the consideration of age and weight-based dose stratification to optimise amisulpride prescribing in older people, particularly in those aged 85 years and above. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00213-016-4379-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.