Therapeutic Drug Monitoring for Individualized Antidepressant Treatment.

This study focuses on therapeutic drug monitoring for individualized antidepressant treatment.. The research employs high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques to address analytical challenges in the clinical field. This study aimed to establish a UPLC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous quantification of five antidepressants: venlafaxine (VEN) and its metabolite O-desmethylvenlafaxine (ODV), mirtazapine (MIR), sertraline (SER), escitalopram (ESC), and vortioxetine (VTX) in human plasma and saliva. By analyzing real-world therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) data, this study aimed to identify key... Research Background and Significance Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) plays a pivotal role in optimizing antidepressant therapy by enabling individualized dosing tailored to the patient's pharmacokinetic profile. Antidepressants such as venlafaxine, mirtazapine, sertraline, escitalopram, and vortioxetine have variable metabolism and narrow therapeutic windows, making precise quantification in biological matrices essential. The study by Li et al. (2025) addresses the analytical challenges inherent in clinical TDM by deploying advanced chromatographic techniques to measure plasma and saliva concentrations of these compounds and their metabolites. This approach supports clinicians in making informed dosing adjustments to improve therapeutic outcomes and minimize adverse effects, underscoring the importance of robust, sensitive, and reliable analytical methods in psychiatric pharmacotherapy. Experimental Design and Methodology The study employed ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) to simultaneously quantify five antidepressants and one key metabolite in human plasma and saliva samples. The method development focused on achievin