Magnetic solid phase extraction for determination of drugs in biological matrices

Determination of drugs in biological matrices is required in different contexts, including development of new drug products, bioequivalence and pharmacokinetic studies, toxicological analysis and therapeutic drug monitoring. The presence of endogenous compounds and the analytes low concentration make biological matrices complex to be analyzed. Therefore, sample preparation is an important step. In this context, new extraction techniques have been proposed in recent years. An innovative approach is magnetic solid phase extraction, a new type of solid phase extraction based on magnetic sorbents. This technique has been increasingly studied for determination of drugs in biological matrices due to several advantages over conventional techniques and the development of new materials. Owing to the potential of this approach, the literature was reviewed in order to evaluate the development and application of this technique comprising the period from 2009 to September 2016. Critical evaluation and trends regarding magnetic solid phase extraction were presented.