Analysis of sunitinib malate, a multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor: A critical review

Sunitinib malate is a multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor. This work presents a review of characteristics and analytical methods applied for its determination due to the impact of developing effective and reliable analytical methods for quality control analysis, therapeutic drug monitoring, pharmacokinetics, and bioavailability studies. Most of the published methods depended on LC/MS/MS; also ultraviolet spectrophotometric, chemiluminescence, electrochemical, capillary electrophoresis, high-performance thin-layer chromatography, and high-performance liquid chromatography methods were used for estimation of sunitinib. A discussion presented here highlighted the need for developing alternative methods that are money and time saving, need minimum sample pre-treatment steps, consume less toxic solvents, and hence have minimum residue. Also, the literature revealed a deficiency in studying possible drug-drug pharmacokinetic interactions.