CHEMOTHERAPY: IMATINIB DRUG MONITORING

TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION

The effectiveness of many anticancer drugs varies greatly from patient to patient, with risks of incorrect dosages and adverse side effects. The invention provides for the first time an electrochemical method to measure the concentration of the drug Imatinib in patient’s plasma and then to establish the optimal dose, with an on-site test readable in real time.
Imatinib is an anticancer drug used in particular for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) greatly improves the effectiveness of the cancer treatment and helps to personalize the doses and to limit side effects. Quick procedures are therefore essential. The patented electrochemical method provides a simple, fast and cost-effective protocol for the measurement of Imatinib concentration through plasma collection; said method is suitable for the manufacturing of a device, that will make the test results readily and easily accessible at the patient’s bed (point-of-care), avoiding long times required by specialized analysis. The method involves the selective extraction of the drug on a liquid-liquid extraction column and a following measurement of its concentration using an electrochemical technique, in particular adsorptive stripping voltammetry.

BENEFITS

-Simple protocol to be performed also by non-specialized personnel;
-Rapid and accurate diagnosis on site;
-Minimum amount of plasma required;
-Results in real time;
-Determination of drug concentration and therefore of treatment effectiveness for a timely adjustment of individual dosage.

LIMITATIONS

The proposed device is drug specific.

APPLICATIONS

-Protocol to determine Imatinib concentration in patients’ plasma;
-Suitable for developing a portable device to perform therapeutic Imatinib drug monitoring.

MATERIALS