Use of quantitative pharmacology tools to improve malaria treatments

The use of pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) data to inform antimalarial treatment regimens has accelerated in the past few decades, due in no small part to the stimulus provided by progressive development of parasite resistance to most of the currently available drugs. An understanding of the disposition, interactions, efficacy and toxicity of the mainstay of contemporary antimalarial treatment, artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), has been facilitated by PK/PD studies which have been used to refine treatment regimens across the spectrum of disease, especially in special groups including young children and pregnant women. The present review highlights recent clinically-important examples of the ways in which these quantitative pharmacology tools have been applied to improve ACT, as well as 8-aminoquinoline use and the characterisation of novel antimalarial therapies such as the spiroindolones.