Review of the validated HPLC and LC-MS/MS methods for determination of drugs used in clinical practice for Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurological disorder and is the most frequent type of dementia among elderly people. Donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine, tacrine and memantine are the US Food and Drug Administration approved oral drugs used in the treatment of AD. Quantitation of these drugs in various biological matrices and monitoring them in long-term treatment is essential to titer the dose of these drugs and ensure patient compliance. This review provides a comprehensive account of various HPLC and LC-MS/MS assays, which have been successfully employed to measure the drug levels in various biological matrices arising from preclinical and clinical studies. In addition, this review collates various considerations such as internal standard selection, extraction schemes, matrix effect, selectivity evaluation and optimization of mass spectrometric conditions to enable the development of sound bioanalytical methods for quantitation of Alzheimer's drugs. Overall LC-MS/MS methods have proven to be the choice of bioanalytical method for the quantification of Alzheimer's drugs in both preclinical and clinical studies. In conclusion, important features of LC-MS/MS methodology for Alzheimer's drugs include shortened analysis time, increased throughput, selectivity and lower cost of analysis.
(Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)