Therapeutic drug monitoring of vancomycin: a guideline of the Division of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Chinese Pharmacological Society.

BACKGROUND: Guideline development should be based on the quality of evidence, balance of benefits and harms, economic evaluation and patients' views and preferences. Therefore, these factors were considered in the development of a new guideline for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of vancomycin.

OBJECTIVES: To develop an evidence-based guideline for vancomycin TDM and to promote standardized vancomycin TDM in clinical practice in China.

METHODS: We referred to the WHO Handbook for Guideline Development and used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system to rate the quality of evidence and grade the strength of recommendations, according to economic evaluation and patients' views and preferences. We used the GRADE Grid method to formulate the recommendations.

RESULTS: The guideline presents recommendations about who should receive vancomycin TDM, how to monitor vancomycin efficacy and renal safety, therapeutic trough concentrations, time to start initial vancomycin TDM, loading dose and how to administer and adjust the vancomycin dose.

CONCLUSIONS: We developed an evidence-based guideline for vancomycin TDM, which provides recommendations for clinicians and pharmacists to conduct vancomycin TDM in China.