Determination of Pemoline in Plasma, Plasma Water, Mixed Saliva, and Urine by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A new determination method of pemoline [a psychostimulant] in plasma, plamsa, water, mixed saliva and urine using high-performance liquid chromatography was developed. The detection limit of pemoline using 0.2 ml of the sample was 0.02 .mu.g/ml in plasma, plasma water, saliva and urine. The recoveries of pemoline added to plasma, saliva and urine (each 6 .mu.g/ml) were more than 98%. The coefficients of variation of within-run and between-run precisions for 5 concentrations of pemoline in plasma were less than 5 and 6%, respectively. The elimination half-lives of pemoline obtained from the plasma concentration-time curves after a single oral administration of pemoline in 2 subjects were 6.7 and 10.3 h. Mean values of the ratio between saliva and plasma total concentration in 2 subjects were 0.55 and 0.64, and mean values of plasma protein binding % were 35.7 and 25.2%, respectively. The saliva concentrations were in proportion to the plasma unbound pemoline concentrations at simultaneous samplings, and the ratios between saliva and plasma unbound concentration were about 0.9 in 2 subjects. Usefulness of saliva in the estimation of plasma protein-unbound pemoline concentration was noted.