The logic behind IMBG resembles the one of an antibiogram, a pharmacodynamics in vitro bioassay that evaluates the usefulness of different antibiotics to treat a specific infection in a patient. The antibiogram is extensively used in clinical practice, as a very valuable tool in guiding antimicrobial therapy for each patient. It provides the profile of susceptibility or resistance patterns of pathogens to commonly used antimicrobials.
Previous scientific studies have shown that “cellular pharmacodynamics of immunosuppressive drugs is an efficient strategy to predict the clinical efficacy of drugs in many immunological disorders and organ transplantations. Unexpectedly large individual deviations in PBMC sensitivity to the drugs, paralleled with deviations in the clinical efficacy of the drugs have been observed in most cases of immunological disorders”
“Therefore, the examination in vitro of drug sensitivity before drug administration can be a valuable tool to predict the clinical efficacy of drugs in these patients” (Hirano T, 2007)
