Why is Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Important?
Therapeutic drugs are pharmacological substances administered for various treatments, typically comprising drugs with slim pharmaceutical windows. This sensitive index requires exceptionally accurate dosing to maximize the desirable effects of therapeutic drugs while minimizing or negating their toxic effects. As such, treatments with small pharmaceutical windows must be accompanied by consistent drug concentration measurements in blood or plasma to ensure acceptable toxicity levels are constantly maintained.
Clinical chemists and pharmacologists using therapeutic drug monitoring must approach the methodology with a holistic mindset and a broad awareness of the many variables that can affect drug efficacy. Therapeutic drug monitoring is primarily concerned with the interpretation of drug concentration in samples, but multiple data can be extrapolated from drug concentration measurements using established methodologies such as sandwich or lateral flow EIA (ELISA) tests.
These assay systems are relatively costly, but the benefits for diagnostics and toxicology control cannot be understated. Symptoms can be assessed by accurately associating or disassociating them with drug concentration, and dosing levels can be adjusted accordingly – thus improving patient health and wellbeing.
Therapeutic drug monitoring is not only capable of improving the care and wellbeing of individuals by reducing side effects symptomatic of aggressive treatments, it can inform drug characterization for wider applications. Measuring therapeutic drug concentration against dosing and patient data improves assessments of patient demographics and advances future treatments in a truly symbiotic process.
Therapeutic Drug Monitoring with Pyxis Laboratories
Pyxis Laboratories synthesizes a broad range of chemical reagents for established and custom applications. Our conjugates and monoclonal antibodies display excellent degrees of targetability and chromatic response levels for multiple testing methodologies, including EIA or ELISA tests. The reagents we readily synthesize include:
- Alcohol such as, ethyl glucuronide-BSA (EtG-BSA);
- Amphetamines such as, Amphetamine-BSA, Methamphetamine-BSA, methcathinone-BSA, MDMA-BSA, MDPV-BSA, Mephedrone-BSA and Methylphenidate-BSA (Ritalin-BSA);
- Benzodiazepines, such as Oxazepam-BSA and Clonazepam-BSA;
- Cannabinoids such us, delta-8-THC-BSA, delta-9-THC-BSA; and synthetic cannabinoids such as, JWH-018-BSA, ABpinaca-BSA, UR144-BSA;
- Cocaine, such as BZEG-BSA;
- Hallucinogens/Anesthetics such as, Ketamine-BSA and PCP-BSA;
- Nicotinic such as, Cotinine-BSA.
- Opioids such as, Buprenorphine-BSA, Fentanyl-BSA, Methadone-BSA, Morphine-BSA, Oxycodone-BSA, Propoxyphene-BSA and others such as Chloramphenicol-BSA, Gabapentin-BSA and N-acetyl glucosamine-BSA (NAG-BSA).
We pride ourselves on our reproducibility of regents for testing of drugs of abuse or therapeutic drugs, to ensure high laboratory or hospital throughput and good treatment consistencies. If you would like any more information about therapeutic drug monitoring with Pyxis Laboratories products, please do not hesitate to contact us.
