Publisher rights This is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Chromatography B. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Chromatography B, [VOL 923-924, (2013)] General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. The authors wish also to acknowledge the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia for the studentship provided. The funder of the current study had no involvement in: (1) design and conduct of the study; (2) collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data;and (3) preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
Conflict of Interest:The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose.Page 2 Chromatographic separation of the AEDs was achieved using Waters XBridge™ C18 column with a gradient system. The developed method was linear over the concentration ranges studied with r ≥0.995 for all compounds. The lower limits of quantification (LLOQs) were 2, 1, 2, 0.5 and 1 μg/mL for LVT, LTG, PHB, CBZE and CBZ, respectively. Accuracy (%RE) and precision (%CV) values for within and between day were <20% at the LLOQs and <15% at all other concentrations tested. This method was successfully applied to the analysis of the AEDs in DBS samples taken from children with epilepsy for the assessment of their adherence to prescribed treatments.
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Highlights: We report a simple method for the analysis of four antiepileptic drugs in DBS samples The method was applied to DBS samples collected from children with epilepsy Such technique has potential in assessing adherence to AEDs using home sampling