LC-MS/MS assay for the therapeutic drug monitoring of perampanel in children with drug-resistant epilepsy

Perampanel (PER) is the first clinically available selective antagonist of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid (AMPA) receptor approved globally for the treatment of epilepsy. Studies have recently underlined the significant association between dose-exposure-effect-adverse events of PER in patients with epilepsy, so the therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of PER is critical in clinical practices, especially for pediatric patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Due to several limits in previous published analytical methods, herein, we describe the development and validation of a novel liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for monitoring PER in human plasma samples. Protein precipitation method by acetonitrile containing PER-d5 as internal standard was applied for the sample clean-up. Formic acid (FA, 0.2 mM) in both aqueous water and acetonitrile were used as the mobile phases and the analyte was separated by an isocratic elution. Qualification and quantification were performed under positive electrospray ionization (ESI) mode using the m/z 350.3 → 219.1 and 355.3 → 220.0 ions pairs transitions for PER and PER-d5, respectively. Potential co-medicated anti-seizure medications (ASMs) have no interference to the analysis. Calibration curves were linear in the concentration range of 1.00–2,000 ng mL−1 for PER. The intra- and inter-batch precision, accuracy, recovery, dilution integrity, and stability of the method were all within the acceptable criteria and no matrix effect or carryover was found. This method was then successfully implemented on the TDM of PER in Chinese children with drug-resistant epilepsy. We firstly confirmed the apparent inter- and intra-individual PER concentration variabilities and potential drug-drug interactions between PER and several concomitant ASMs occurred in Chinese pediatric patients, which were also in line with previous studies in patients of other race.