Abstract
Malaria is the leading parasitic disease in emerging countries. Therapeutic drug monitoring of antimalarial drugs is becoming increasingly important due to their spreading resistance. Measuring systemic antimalarial drug concentrations is also vital for safety and PK evaluations during clinical development. The dried blood spot (DBS) technique is a convenient alternative sample-collection method to venipuncture, especially in resource -limited areas where the clinical studies of antimalarials are usually carried out. Various bioanalytical methods for antimalarial drug estimation utilizing DBS sampling have been reported. This review discusses the applicability and relevance of DBS in quantitative assessment of antimalarial drugs, the advantages and drawbacks of DBS, and the difficulties encountered during its implementation.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
I Taneja is supported by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and M Erukala by Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Director of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Central Drug Research Institute and to the Project Director of National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Raebareli for their constant encouragement and support.