Optimising drug regimens in paediatric liver disease using experimentally-derived simulation tools
Professor Amin Rostami and Dr Jill Barber of the University of Manchester discuss their research and what it means for the future of treating childhood liver disease.
What is this study looking at?
This research is exploring how medications act in children’s livers including those which a liver disease. Livers vary from person to person and these differences can affect how much of a drug a child should be given. Size of liver is one important variation and another is the level of different enzymes in the liver.
The enzymes help different reactions take place in the liver including the breakdown of medications. The research team have developed a way to measure the level of enzymes in livers. They will be looking at livers from children with and without liver disease and comparing the levels of a number of different enzymes.
Why is this research important?
At the moment it is very difficult for doctors to know exactly how much of a drug a child should be given. This means they have to try and estimate dosages based on adult amounts.
What about the future?
The results of this study will feed into a model which will help doctors prescribing medicines to children with liver disease to prescribe the most suitable dose.
