Comparative pharmacokinetic (PK) analysis is often carried out throughout the entire period of drug development, the common approach for the assessment of pharmacokinetics between different treatments requires that the individual PK parameters, which employs estimation of 90% confidence intervals for the ratio of average parameters, such as AUC and Cmax, these 90% confidence intervals then need to be compared with the pre-specified equivalent interval, and last we determine whether the two treatments are equivalent. Unfortunately in many clinical circumstances, some or even all of the individuals can only be sparsely sampled, making the individual evaluation difficult by the conventional non-compartmental analysis. In such cases, nonlinear mixed effect model (NONMEM) could be applied to analyze the sparse data. In this article, we simulated a sparsely sampling design trial based on the dense sampling data from a truly comparative PK study. The sparse data were analyzed with NONMEM method, and the original dense data were analyzed with non-compartment analysis. Although the trial design and analysis methods are different, the 90% confidence intervals for the ratio of PK parameters based on 1000 Bootstrap are very similar, indicated that the analysis based on NONMEM is a reliable method to treat with the sparse data in the comparative pharmacokinetic study.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) RsaI/PstI and DraI polymorphisms in workers exposed to benzene.

METHODSA cross-sectional survey was carried out. A total of 71 workers exposed to benzene were included in observation group and the same number of people without occupational benzene exposure were included in control group. Blood samples from the two groups were collected and genotyping for CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI and DraI were conducted using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism.

RESULTSThere were no significant differences in CYP2E1 DraI genotype and allele distributions between the observation group and the control group (χ² = 2.374, P > 0.05; χ² = 2.113, P > 0.05). Significant differences in CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI genotype and allele distributions between the two groups were observed (χ² = 9.129, P < 0.01; χ² = 6.028, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONMutations at CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI can enhance the expression of CYP2E1 and this suggests individuals with the mutated gene have increased susceptibility to chronic benzene poisoning.

Alleles ; Benzene ; poisoning ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Cytochrome P-450 CYP2E1 ; genetics ; metabolism ; Genetic Predisposition to Disease ; Genotype ; Humans ; Poisoning ; genetics ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymorphism, Genetic ; genetics ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length