An Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Afatinib, Alectinib, Ceritinib, Crizotinib, Dacomitinib, Erlotinib, Gefitinib, and Osimertinib in Human Serum

• Published in: Therapeutic drug monitoring Vol. 43; no. 6; p. 772
• Main Authors: Mukai, Yuji, Wakamoto, Azusa, Hatsuyama, Tae, Yoshida, Tatsunari, Sato, Hideki, Fujita, Akihisa, Inotsume, Nobuo, Toda, Takaki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.12.2021
• Subjects: Acrylamides; Afatinib - therapeutic use; Aniline Compounds; Carbazoles; Chromatography, Liquid - methods; Crizotinib - therapeutic use; Erlotinib Hydrochloride; Gefitinib - therapeutic use; Humans; Lung Neoplasms; Piperidines; Protein Kinase Inhibitors; Pyrimidines; Quinazolinones; Sulfones; Tandem Mass Spectrometry - methods
• ISSN: 1536-3694
• DOI: 10.1097/ftd.0000000000000895

Routine therapeutic drug monitoring is a promising approach for the rational use of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitors. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous determination of 5 EGFR-TKIs (afatinib, dacomitinib, erlotinib, gefitinib, and osimertinib) and 3 ALK inhibitors (alectinib, ceritinib, and crizotinib). A 100-mL aliquot of serum was diluted with 100 μL of 1% aqueous ammonia containing internal standards and then purified using the supported liquid extraction method. LC-MS/MS was conducted in positive ionization mode, and the method was validated according to published guidelines. Calibration curves were linear across concentration ranges examined. The intra- and interassay accuracies were 90.7%-110.7% and 94.7%-107.6%, respectively. All intra- and interassay imprecision values were ≤10.1%. The EGFR-TKIs and ALK inhibitors examined in this study, except osimertinib, which could be stored on ice for at least 5 hours, were stable at room temperature for 3 hours. For the internal standard-normalized matrix factors, the mean recovery and percent coefficient of variation values ranged between 54%-112% and 1.7%-11.7%, respectively. This method successfully determined serum concentrations of afatinib, alectinib, erlotinib, gefitinib, and osimertinib in clinical samples. Serum levels of kinase inhibitors consistently reflected those reported in previous studies. An LC-MS/MS method suitable for the simultaneous determination of 5 EGFR-TKIs and 3 ALK inhibitors in serum was developed and validated. The newly developed method enabled the determination of 5 of 8 target drugs examined in clinical samples. However, a large number of clinical samples need to be analyzed to verify the usefulness of the method.