A research pathway for the study of the delivery and disposition of nebulised antibiotics: an incremental approach from in vitro to large animal models

Background Nebulised antibiotics are frequently used for the prevention or treatment of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Many factors may influence pulmonary drug concentrations with inaccurate dosing schedules potentially leading to therapeutic failure and/or the emergence of antibiotic resistance. We describe a research pathway for studying the pharmacokinetics of a nebulised antibiotic during mechanical ventilation using in vitro methods and ovine models, using tobramycin as the study antibiotic. Methods In vitro studies using a laser diffractometer and a bacterial-viral filter were used to measure the effect of the type and size of tracheal tubes and antibiotic concentration on the particle size distribution of the tobramycin 400 mg (4 ml; 100 mg/ml) and 160 mg (4 ml, 40 mg/ml) aerosol and nebulised mass delivered. To compare the regional drug distribution in the lung of two routes (intravenous and nebulised) of drug administration of tobramycin 400 mg, technetium-99m-labelled tobramycin 400 mg with planar nuclear medicine imaging was used in a mechanically ventilated ovine model. To measure tobramycin concentrations by intravenous and nebulised tobramycin 400 mg (4 ml, 100 mg/ml) administration in the lung interstitial space (ISF) fluid and blood of mechanically ventilated sheep, the microdialysis technique was used over an 8-h duration. Results Tobramycin 100 mg/ml achieved a higher lung dose (121.3 mg) compared to 40 mg/ml (41.3 mg) solution. The imaging study with labelled tobramycin indicated that nebulised tobramycin distributed more extensively into each lung zone of the mechanically ventilated sheep than intravenous administration. A higher lung ISF peak concentration of tobramycin was observed with nebulised tobramycin (40.8 mg/l) compared to intravenous route (19.0 mg/l). Conclusions The research methods appear promising to describe lung pharmacokinetics for formulations intended for nebulisation during mechanical ventilation. These methods need further validation in an experimental pneumonia model to be able to contribute toward optimising dosing regimens to inform clinical trials and/or clinical use.