Transplant therapeutic drug monitoring assays, such as Sirolimus and Tacrolimus, as well as Cyclosporine, are used as an aid in the management of allograft recipients receiving immunosuppressive drug (ISD) therapy.

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of transplant patients provides unique challenges to the laboratory due to the various immunosuppressive drug combinations that are prescribed. For the treatment to be optimal, clinicians need an accurate determination of a patient’s immunosuppressive drug concentration in whole blood.

¹ https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/ accessed January 23, 2017

The best patient outcomes seem to be achieved by maintaining the right balance of a combination of ISDs (cocktail therapy) at lower dosage levels to reduce toxicity and prevent graft loss.

Accurate and precise measurement of tacrolimus concentration, followed by optimal tacrolimus dosing, could improve patient quality of life and ensure long term survival of both the patient and allograft by reducing drug toxicity while maintaining adequate immunosuppression during low dose therapy.

The automated ARCHITECT Tacrolimus Assay offers the ease of use laboratories need, the turnaround time clinicians require, all with the low-end assay sensitivity and performance required for post-transplant patient therapeutic drug monitoring.

² ARCHITECT Tacrolimus Package Insert 607-018 7/15/ R10 September 2015