In the therapy of Crohn's disease, which is a type of chronic inflammatory bowel disease, biological medicines are also used in the treatment. One of such is ustekinumab, a human monoclonal antibody targeted against the p40 subunit, which is present in interleukins 12 and 23. New approaches, using therapeutic drug monitoring as a method to monitor treatment with ustekinumab and to predict it's efficacy, are being developed. These approaches usually require regular sampling of patients' venous blood in health facilities, which can cause discomfort to the patients. We can overcome this problem by using microsampling methods, which allow home sampling. One of the methods is the dried blood spot method (DBS). The method is relatively simple, although we must overcome some challenges for precise and accurate quantification of the analyte. One of these challenges is the haematocrit influence on the blood volume present in the dried blood sample punch. We have tried to improve the precision of the method for the determination of ustekinumab by addressing this difficulty and estimating the relation between haematocrit value and blood volume in the sample. To measure the blood volume we developed and adapted a method based on conductivity measurement. We have found out that the volume variation in the punches due to haematocrit is significant and higher when a higher volume of blood is applied (8,4 – 12,0 µL at 40 µL and 8,7 – 10,6 µL at 20 µL spots). Additionally, we tried to develop quick and simple methods for the determination of haematocrit in DBS samples. We determined haematocrit indirectly by measuring haemoglobin using sodium lauryl sulfate reagent and by image analysis with ImageJ software. We compared the precision of both methods to the reference method (hematology analyzer). The image analysis method was found to be more precise and accurate. We have used the acquired knowledge in the analysis of real patient samples. To measure ustekinumab concentration, we used an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. We tried to adapt and partially validate the method for use on DBS samples, as the kit we used, was developed and validated only for use with serum or plasma samples. We developed a method capable of determination of ustekinumab in the entire expected therapeutic plasma concentration range (3 – 120 mg/L). We investigated the precision and accuracy of the method and established the calibration curve. We converted the concentrations in DBS samples to plasma concentrations by using different methods and compared them to the real plasma concentrations. We have found out that by ignoring the haematocrit value in calculations, a significant error can be made especially with patients, whose haematocrit values significantly differ from average haematocrit values.
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