Understanding Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) at a glance

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of therapeutic drug monitoring. The primary objectives of TDM are to prevent therapeutic failures carried on by poor compliance or prescribing a drug at a dose that is too low, as well as negative or toxic effects brought on by an excessive dose. Moreover, it gives information about when and what type of drug needs therapeutic drug monitoring. Like the drug which has a short therapeutic window they require therapeutic monitoring because it can cause toxicity or no therapeutic effect. However, the appropriate use of TDM is not only the simple measurement of patient blood drug concentration and the comparison of its target range but also TDM plays an important role in the therapeutic medication by ensuring safety and effectiveness also with individualization of these medications, desired clinical targets, dosage history, sampling time in relation to the dose patient’s response these factors needed to be considered while interpreting drug concentration measurements to achieve the optimal response with minimal toxicity. So TDM can be considered as a combined approach encompassing pharmaceutical, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic techniques and analyses.