Abstract: AIM: To build a meropenem population pharmacokinetic model for Chinese elderly through model-based meta-analysis. METHODS: Informations including dosing regimen, sampling times, concentrations, sample size, age, gender, body weight (BW) and creatinine clearance were extracted after the literature were retrieved. The model was built by NONMEM. Stepwise covariate modeling strategy was used for covariates analysis.RESULTS: A two-compartment model was applied to describe meropenem pharmacokinetics. After stepwise covariate modeling, covariates that remained significant in the final model were creatinine clearance (CLcr) on CL and the BW on V1. The stability and predictive performance were confirmed by bootstrapping and visual predictive check. CONCLUSION: A more representative population pharmacokinetics model of meropenem in Chinese elderly patients is built through model-base meta-analysis method.

Key words: meropenem, model-based meta-analysis, the Chinese eldlerly, NONMEM