Abstract
The use of complementary medicine (CMD) for liver support in Hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients sometimes coincides with the administration of oral antiviral drugs to eradicate the virus. This calls for a deep investigation of CMD effects on the pharmacokinetic parameters of these drugs to ensure their safety and efficacy. Silymarin (SLY), as a CMD, was selected to be given orally to healthy male rats with sofosbuvir (SFB) and ledipasvir (LED), a common regimen in HCV treatment. A new and sensitive LC-MS method was validated for the bioassay of SLY, LED, SFB and its inactive metabolite, GS-331007, in spiked plasma with lower limits of quantitation of 10, 1, 4 and 10 ng/ml, respectively. Moreover, the method was further applied to conduct a full pharmacokinetic profile of SFB, GS-331007 and ledipasvir with and without SLY. It was found that co-administration of SLY may expose the patient to unplanned high serum concentrations of SFB and LED. This could be accompanied by a decrease in SFB efficacy, potentially leading to therapeutic failure and the emergence of viral resistance.