Digoxin immunoassay with cross-reactivity of digoxin metabolites proportional to their biological activity

Our objective was to identify commercially available digoxin immunoassays whose cross-reactivity with digoxin metabolites paralleled the pharmacological activity of the metabolites. We measured the immunoreactivity of digoxigenin bis- and monodigitoxosides, digoxigenin, and dihydrodigoxin in four immunoassays and compared the immunoactivities with pharmacological activities from studies involving whole-animal and receptor (Na,K-ATPase)-based assays. Correlation coefficients for comparisons of immunoassay reactivity and human heart receptor reactivities were: ACS, 0.96; TDx, 0.60; Stratus, 0.57; and Magic, 0.42. Comparison with other biological assays showed a similar trend. The major difference in metabolite cross-reactivities among the immunoassays was that of digoxigenin (ACS, 0.7%; TDx, 103%; Stratus, 108%; Magic, 153%), which has approximately 10% bioactivity relative to digoxin. Measured recovery of mixtures of digoxin and metabolites confirmed these findings. We conclude that the monoclonal antibody in the ACS digoxin assay closely mimics Na,K-ATPase in detecting digoxin and its metabolites. This finding provides a basis for developing therapeutic drug monitoring immunoassays capable of approximating the true pharmacological activity of a mixture of drug metabolites.