Quantitative determination of the antimalarials artemether and lumefantrine in biological samples: A review

Publication date: 20 February 2019Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, Volume 165Author(s): Luisa Avelar Resende, Pedro Henrique Reis da Silva, Christian FernandesAbstractMalaria is a worldwide health issue, with 216 million cases reported in 2016. Due to the widespread resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to conventional drugs, the first line treatment recommended by World Health Organization for uncomplicated malaria is artemisinin-based combined therapy (ACT), which combines two drugs with different mechanisms of action. The association of artemether and lumefantrine is the most common ACT used in the clinical practice. However, there have been reports of clinical artemisinin and derivatives partial resistance, which is defined as delayed parasite clearance. In this context, the monitoring of drug concentration in biological matrices is essential to evaluate treatment response, the need of dose adjustment and the occurrence of dose dependent adverse effects. Furthermore, it is also important for pharmacokinetic studies and in the development of generic and similar drugs. Determination of antimalarial drugs in biological matrices requires a sample pre-treatment, which involves drug extraction from the matrix and analyte concentration. The most used techniques are protein precipitation (PP), liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid phase extraction (SPE). Subsequently, a liquid chromatography step is usually applied to separate interferences that could b...
Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: research