caa a22 4500 378917439 CHVBK 20180305123556.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161128e20041101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1515/CCLM.2004.242 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)gruyter-10.1515/CCLM.2004.242 Wallemacq Pierre E. 1. Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital St Luc, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium Therapeutic monitoring of immunosuppressant drugs. Where are we? [Elektronische Daten] [Pierre E. Wallemacq] The emergence of specific immunosuppressive drugs (cyclosporine, tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil and sirolimus) during the last two decades has contributed dramatically to the success of organ transplantation. However, optimum balance between therapeutic efficacy and the occurrence of side effects has been a real challenge for physicians, mainly due to inter- and intra-patient variability arising from pharmacokinetic, pharmacogenetic and pharmacodynamic individual properties. Therapeutic drug monitoring, defined as the measurement and interpretation of concentrations of these drugs in biological fluids, with as a final objective the prediction of organ responses, became an integral part of transplant protocols. New analytical techniques became available with different performances in terms of specificity and sensitivity. In addition, there has been progress in understanding the mechanisms of action of these drugs that have implications for the development of better monitoring strategies and for their coprescription. The purpose of this review is to examine the current strategies in use for the therapeutic drug monitoring of immunosuppressant drugs and to discuss some of the factors that impinge on the monitoring of these drugs. © Walter de Gruyter Medical equipment & techniques nationallicence Medical diagnosis nationallicence Diseases & disorders nationallicence cyclosporine nationallicence mycophenolic acid nationallicence sirolimus nationallicence tacrolimus nationallicence therapeutic drug monitoring nationallicence Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Walter de Gruyter 42/11(2004-11-01), 1204-1211 1434-6621 42:11<1204 2004 42 cclm https://doi.org/10.1515/CCLM.2004.242 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1515/CCLM.2004.242 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Wallemacq Pierre E. 1. Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital St Luc, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Walter de Gruyter 42/11(2004-11-01), 1204-1211 1434-6621 42:11<1204 2004 42 cclm CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-gruyter