Suitability of collection tubes with separator gels for collecting and storing blood samples for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM)

In this study, we present significant changes occurring in serum drug concentrations while using blood collection tubes that contain a barrier gel. This report also contains results with antidepressant drugs, which have not been studied before with human samples. The drug concentrations were measured either with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) or fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA). The results show that gel tubes are suitable for blood collection for antiepileptic. antibiotic, asthma and cardioactive drug measurements, since only slight adsorption was seen (0-5%). However, the studied tubes are not suitable for blood collection of antidepressants nor benzodiazepines, because the adsorption can be 5-30%. The adsorption was even higher (up to 40%) when samples were stored for 24 h after centrifugation in gel tubes. When the centrifugation step was performed after storage the effect of the barrier gel was lower (only 0-13%). Antidepressant drug measurements performed from patient specimens collected in the studied gel tubes and stored for 3 h showed <10% adsorption of the studied drugs. After 24 h storage time, concentrations of all analysed drugs decreased even more: adsorbed amount of drugs were about 5-20%. The studied gel tubes are proposed to be satisfactory for blood collection for antidepressant drug measurements if separation step is performed within 3 h after blood clotting. With the spiked samples the adsorption to barrier gel was higher, so it seems that adsorption is faster when drugs are not highly bound to serum proteins.