Overview of the analytical methods for vancomycin and/or teicoplanin determination in biological matrices

Background. Teicoplanin and vancomycin are glycopeptide antibiotics currently in use for treatment of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. Scope and Approach. Severe undesirable effects, such as ototoxicity, nephrotoxicity and neutropenia have been reported for vancomycin and teicoplanin, which necessitates monitoring the concentration of these two drugs in different biological samples. In order to obtain precise and accurate results, sensitive, reliable and fast methods are necessary. The main aim of this mini review is to give a clear and concise overview of the recently developed, validated, novel and improved methods for glycopeptide antibiotic analyses in various biological matrices. Also, the variability of the matrices requires optimal and effective sample preparation procedures to be developed, and so these are discussed. Key Findings and Conclusions. Different liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) methods have been described for quantitative determination of glycopeptide antibiotics in various biological matrices. It was shown that protein precipitation was a convenient method for sample preparation despite the high number of novel sample preparation methods.