Table 1.

Implications of fixed dose vs. adaptative protocols on the proportion of patients achieving a predefined target exposure, based on a trial with n= 128 subjects

	Initial dose	First dose adjustment	Second dose adjustment
Patients underdosed (AUC < 6.02 mg h l−1)	51	14	14
Patients overdosed (AUC > 10.00 mg h l−1)	10	0	2
Total patients with inappropriate exposure	61 (48%)	14 (11%)	16 (12%)

In this example, 11% of the patients do not reach effective exposure despite dose-adjustment procedures. These results suggest that the heterogeneity of the population (i.e. width of the parameter distribution) may play a more important role than accuracy and precision (i.e. uncertainty) in parameter estimates. Abbreviation: AUC, area under the concentration vs. time curve.