Determining drug-induced bilirubin release - by differential spectrometric determination of free or protein-bound bilirubin

摘要

A procedure for determining the relative ability of chemical agents (e.g. drugs) to release protein-bound bilirubin (I) comprises (a) measurement of the max absorption of (I) and/or free bilirubin in a plasma sample contg. a known proportion of bilirubin and protein; (b) addn. of various known amts of the chemical agents to aliquots of the same plasma sample (c) measurement of the decrease in the max absorption of (I) and/or the increase in the max. absorption of free bilirubin after each addn; (d) plotting of the inverse of the molar concn. of each chemical agent against the inverse of the increase or decrease in max. absorption or plotting the molar concn. of the chemical agent directly against the max. absorption increase or decrease; and (e) comparing the curves obtd. for each chemical agent. The method can be used to assess the bilirubin-release capability of various drugs in a particular patient's plasma so that a drug can be chosen which will give least bilirubin release and will therefore be less likely to give rise to potentially harmful hyperbilirubinaemia.