CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

If one knows the probability of an event occurring in a population, Bayesian statistics allows modifyingits value when there is new individual information available. Although the Bayesian andfrequentist (classical) methodologies have identical fields of application, the first one is increasinglyapplied in scientific research and big data analysis. In modern pharmacotherapy, clinical pharmacokineticshas been used for the expansion of monitoring, facilitated by technical-analytical andmathematical-statistical developments. Population pharmacokinetics has allowed the identificationand quantification of pathophysiological and treatment characteristics in a specific patient population,especially in the pediatric and neonatal population and other vulnerable groups, explaininginterindividual variability. Likewise, Bayesian estimation is important as a statistical tool applied inpharmacotherapy optimization software when pharmacological monitoring is based on clinical pharmacokineticinterpretation. With its advantages and despite its limitations, pharmacotherapeutic optimizationbased on Bayesian estimation is increasingly used, becoming the reference method today.This characteristic is particularly convenient for routine clinical practice due to the limited numberof samples required from the patient and the flexibility it shows regarding blood sampling times fordrug quantification. Therefore, the application of Bayesian principles to the practice of clinical pharmacokineticshas led to the improvement of pharmacotherapeutic care.