Beckman Coulter Inc, Fullerton, Calif, a manufacturer of diagnostics instruments, has expanded its therapeutic drug-monitoring test menu to include two new assays: QMS® Amikacin and QMS® Quinidine.
The QMS Amikacin assay (AMKX) measures aminoglycoside concentrations in human serum or plasma to guide and monitor dosing regimens and to evaluate toxicity and efficacy of Amikacin, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections.
QMS Quinidine measures concentrations of the drug Quinidine in human plasma or serum. Quinidine is a major antiarrhythmic agent used to treat and prevent arrhythmias. Careful monitoring of the drug is important due to its narrow therapeutic index and similarity in patient response to sub-therapeutic and toxic amounts of the drug.
The assays are manufactured by Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Reagents and calibrators for both assays are liquid and ready-to-use, which helps laboratorians save time by eliminating the need for mixing, hydrating or pre-diluting reagents before testing.
Therapeutic drug-monitoring assays available through the company are engineered and packaged to provide speed, accuracy, ease-of-use and economy for effective TDM analysis, used in conjunction with a UniCel® or Synchron® clinical system.
Clinicians rely on therapeutic drug monitoring to measure specific drugs at intervals, in order to maintain a relatively constant drug concentration in the bloodstream. Therapeutic drugs tend to have a narrow therapeutic range—meaning the quantity required to be effective is not far from the quantity that causes significant side effects and/or toxicity.
