Liquid chromatographic method for the determination of sirolimus in blood using electrochemical detection

Therapeutic drug monitoring of sirolimus (rapamycin) is important for immunosuppressive therapy in solid organ transplantation. We have developed a simple and reliable method for determining blood concentrations of sirolimus using reversed-phase HPLC with electrochemical detection (ECD). The E(2) potential was set at +900 mV. The potential of guard cell was set at +950 mV and that of the E(1) cell at +400 mV. The method was linear for a concentration range of 1-50 ng/mL when 0.5 mL blood was used. The correlation coefficients of all standard curves were greater than or equal to 0.999. The limit of detection was 0.5 ng/mL. The inter-assay precision ranged from 3.22 to 7.48%, and the coefficient of variation (CV) for a quality control sample at 10 ng/mL was 7.48% with a bias of 8.4% from the target value. The intra-assay precision ranged from 0.72 to 3.71%, and the CV for a quality control sample at 10 ng/mL was 0.72% with a bias of 6.8% from the target value. In a solid organ transplant recipient, trough concentrations of sirolimus were well within the analytic range of the HPLC/ECD procedure. The method described here is suitable for management of sirolimus therapy in solid organ transplantation.