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. 2020 Sep 25;22(1):223.
doi: 10.1186/s13075-020-02291-z.

Hydroxychloroquine levels in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: whole blood is preferable but serum levels also detect non-adherence

Collaborators, Affiliations

Hydroxychloroquine levels in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: whole blood is preferable but serum levels also detect non-adherence

Benoit Blanchet et al. Arthritis Res Ther. .

Abstract

Background: Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) levels can be measured in both serum and whole blood. No cut-off point for non-adherence has been established in serum nor have these methods ever been compared. The aims of this study were to compare these two approaches and determine if serum HCQ cut-off points can be established to identify non-adherent patients.

Methods: HCQ levels were measured in serum and whole blood from 573 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The risk factors for active SLE (SLEDAI score > 4) were identified by multiple logistic regression. Serum HCQ levels were measured in 68 additional patients known to be non-adherent, i.e. with whole-blood HCQ < 200 ng/mL.

Results: The mean (± SD) HCQ levels were 469 ± 223 ng/mL in serum and 916 ± 449 ng/mL in whole blood. The mean ratio of serum/whole-blood HCQ levels was 0.53 ± 0.15. In the multivariate analysis, low whole-blood HCQ levels (P = 0.023), but not serum HCQ levels, were independently associated with active SLE. From the mean serum/whole-blood level ratio, a serum HCQ level of 106 ng/mL was extrapolated as the corresponding cut-off to identify non-adherent patients with a sensitivity of 0.87 (95% CI 0.76-0.94) and specificity of 0.89 (95% CI 0.72-0.98). All serum HCQ levels of patients with whole-blood HCQ below the detectable level (< 20 ng/mL) were also undetectable (< 20 ng/mL).

Conclusions: These data suggest that whole blood is better than serum for assessing the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic relation of HCQ. Our results support the use of serum HCQ levels to assess non-adherence when whole blood is unavailable.

Keywords: Adherence; Drug monitoring; Hydroxychloroquine; Serum; Systemic lupus erythematosus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study flow chart
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Serum and whole-blood levels of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), desethylchloroquine (DCQ), and composite (HCQ+DCQ) in log scale
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Correlation between serum and whole-blood levels of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), desethylchloroquine (DCQ), and composite (HCQ+DCQ)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Relation between serum and whole-blood level of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in SLE patients with whole-blood levels < 300 ng/mL. The green and violet lines represent the HCQ level cut-off for non-adherence in serum (106 ng/mL) and whole blood (200 ng/mL), respectively. The orange square represents 14 patients who had both serum and whole-blood HCQ levels below the lower limit of quantification (20 ng/mL). Red crosses represent severe non-adherent patients with whole-blood HCQ levels between 20 and 200 ng/mL. Blue crosses represent patients with whole-blood HCQ levels between 200 and 300 ng/mL

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