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Updated: May 5, 2026
Multiplex Therapeutic Drug Monitoring by Isotope-dilution HPLC-MS/MS of Antibiotics in Critical Illnesses
Published on: August 30, 2018
Development and Validation of a UPLC-MS/MS Detection Method of Baricitinib for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring in
Ruanjuan Zhan1, Yuxin Shen1, Haoxin Fu1
1Department of Pharmacy, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
Background:
Baricitinib is widely used as a selective Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor for the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases in clinic. It is now successfully applied in reducing inflammation and suppressing COVID-19-associated immune dysregulation. As knowledge of the appropriate plasma level of baricitinib in COVID-19 patients is deficient, the measurement of the level of baricitinib in plasma during treatment is necessary and important.
Purpose:
The aim of this study was to establish a bioanalytical method to detect the concentration of baricitinib in COVID-19 patients' plasma by ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS).
Methods:
The preparation process of the injected sample was to spike 100 μL of plasma and 10 μL of internal standard (IS, upadacitinib) working solution, then add 1:3 of acetonitrile to obtain the supernatant. The intra-day and inter-day precision and accuracy, matrix effect, recovery, and stability of the established methodology were all required.
Results:
The method was established to determine the plasma levels in 22 COVID-19 patients. After taking 2 mg/day or 4 mg/day of baricitinib, the mean plasma concentrations of the patients were 15.36 ng/mL and 12.64 ng/mL, respectively.
Conclusion:
This novel UPLC-MS/MS method enables rapid and accurate determination of baricitinib concentrations in human plasma, which is suitable for the therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of baricitinib.
