Bioanalytical methods for the determination of antipsychotic drugs.

Antipsychotic drugs are popular for the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychoses. In general, antipsychotics are administered in oral doses of only a few milligrams per day and they are widely metabolized in the body. Therefore, the concentration of these drugs in plasma is very low (pg-ng/mL levels). In addition, therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of antipsychotic drugs has proven to be of notable value for determining poor compliance of patients and addressing the challenges associated with considerable genetic variability in their metabolism. Thus, in order to conduct pharmacology and toxicology studies and clinical TDM of antipsychotics, as well as address the challenges associated with polypharmacy and drug metabolism, highly sensitive, selective and accurate bioanalytical methods are essential. The most recent studies on the determination of antipsychotics will be reviewed, including separation techniques, sample pretreatment, detectors and validation.