Evaluation of pharmacokinetics underlies the collaborated usage of lamivudine and oxymatrine in beagle dogs

Abstract Combinational therapy of lamivudine and oxymatrine has been employed in the battle against hepatitis B virus in clinical setting. However, the pharmacokinetic behavior of the drug or active metabolism in intravenous/oral co-administration regime is poorly investigated. Herein, we evaluated the pharmacokinetic characteristic through a tailor-designed 3 way crossover-Latin square experiment in adult male beagle dogs. Six dogs were randomly treated by intravenous administration of lamivudine (2.5 mg/kg), oxymatrine (15 mg/kg) and combinational dosage, named as intravenous regime. Meanwhile the other six dogs were orally administrated with lamivudine (2.5 mg/kg), oxymatrine (15 mg/kg) and combinational dosage, named as oral regime. The pharmacokinetic feature in simultaneous oral treatment appeared to have no significant difference when compared with individual administration, even including matrine, the active metabolite of oxymatrine. In intravenous regime, the main pharmacokinetic parameters of simultaneous administration were nearly consistent with intravenous regime remedy. The collaborated application of lamivudine and oxymatrine contributed to non-distinctive pharmacokinetic fluctuations of beagle dogs in intravenous/oral regime, compared with individual employment, which established a vital base for the clinical co-administration against hepatitis B. Furthermore, the present study demonstrated that the determination of pharmacokinetics between combinational and individual therapy might assist in the development of drug compatibility in clinical therapy.