On the possibility of low cost, adherent therapeutic drug monitoring in oncology

A frequent quantification of drugs concentrations in plasma of patients subject to chemotherapy is seldom performed, mostly because the standard methods (Gas or Liquid Chromatography coupled with Mass Spectroscopy) are expensive and time consuming. In this paper we report the approach pursued in one of the research units of the EU project RAMAN4CLINICS to tackle the problem of a low cost, time adherent quantification of drugs used for oncological patients using a Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) spectroscopy. More specifically, the issues concerning the repeatability of the nanostructured substrates will be presented and some promising results to increase the selectivity of the measures toward specific drugs will be discussed, with examples concerning one cytotoxic agent, Irinotecan and one kinase inhibitor, Sunitinib.