Simultaneous Quantification of BCR-ABL and Bruton Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in Dried Plasma Spots and Its Application to Clinical Sample Analysis

Background: Recent reports highlight the importance of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of BCR-ABL and Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs); thus, large-scale studies are needed to determine the target concentrations of these drugs. TDM using dried plasma spots (DPS) instead of conventional plasma samples is a promising approach. This study aimed to develop and validate a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous quantification of BCR-ABL and Bruton TKIs for further TDM studies. Methods: A 20-mu L aliquot of plasma was spotted onto a filter paper and dried completely. Analytes were extracted from 2 DPS using 250 mu L of solvent. After cleanup by supported liquid extraction, the sample was analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Applicability of the method was examined using samples of patients' DPS transported by regular mail as a proof-of-concept study. The constant bias and proportional error between plasma and DPS concentrations were assessed by Passing-Bablok regression analysis, and systematic errors were evaluated by Bland-Altman analysis. Results: The method was successfully validated over the following calibration ranges: 1-200 ng/mL for dasatinib and ponatinib, 2-400 ng/mL for ibrutinib, 5-1000 ng/mL for bosutinib, and 20-4000 ng/mL for imatinib and nilotinib. TKI concentrations were successfully determined for 93 of 96 DPS from clinical samples. No constant bias between plasma and DPS concentrations was observed for bosutinib, dasatinib, nilotinib, and ponatinib, whereas there were proportional errors between the plasma and DPS concentrations of nilotinib and ponatinib. Bland-Altman plots revealed that significant systematic errors existed between both methods for bosutinib, nilotinib, and ponatinib. Conclusions: An LC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous quantification of 6 TKIs in DPS was developed and validated. Further large-scale studies should be conducted to assess the consistency of concentration measurements obtained from plasma and DPS.