Monographs on drugs which are frequently analyzed in therapeutic drug monitoring

In addition to the monographs which have been published recently by the working group "Drug Monitoring” of the Swiss Society of Clinical Chemistry (SSCC) [1-3], new monographs have been written. The aim of these monographs is to provide an overview on the information which is important for the request and interpretation of the results. Therefore, the targeted readers are laboratory health professionals and the receivers of the reports. In this series, several antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs are presented. It is worth noting that the monograph on the antipsychotic clozapine has already been published in 2005 [1]. Information on the indications for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), protein binding, metabolic pathways and enzymes involved, elimination half-life time and elimination route(s) of the parent drug and therapeutic or toxic concentrations is provided. Because pre-analytical considerations are of particular importance for therapeutic drug monitoring, information regarding the optimal point in time for the determination of drug concentrations and achievement of steady-state concentrations after changing the dose is given. Furthermore, the stability of the drug and its metabolite(s) after blood sampling is described. For readers with a specific interest, references to important publications are provided. The number of the monographs will be continuously increased. The updated files are presented on the homepage of the SSCC (www.sscc.ch). We hope that these monographs are helpful for the better handling of therapeutic drug monitoring and we are looking forward to comments by the reader