Journal of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis
-
J Pharm Biomed Anal · Feb 2016
Quantitation of the enantiomers of tramadol and its three main metabolites in human whole blood using LC-MS/MS.
The analgesic drug tramadol and its metabolites are chiral compounds, with the (+)- and (-)-enantiomers showing different pharmacological and toxicological effects. This novel enantioselective method, based on LC-MS/MS in reversed phase mode, enabled measurement of the parent compound and its three main metabolites O-desmethyltramadol, N-desmethyltramadol and N,O-didesmethyltramadol simultaneously. Whole blood samples of 0.5g were fortified with internal standards (tramadol-(13)C-D3 and O-desmethyl-cis-tramadol-D6) and extracted under basic conditions (pH 11) by liquid-liquid extraction. ⋯ Quantitation as well as enantiomeric ratio measurements were covered by quality controls. Validation parameters for all eight enantiomers included selectivity (high), matrix effects (no ion suppression/enhancement), calibration model (linear, weight 1/X(2), in the range of 0.25-250ng/g), limit of quantitation (0.125-0.50ng/g), repeatability (2-6%) and intermediate precision (2-7%), accuracy (83-114%), dilution integrity (98-115%), carry over (not exceeding 0.07%) and stability (stable in blood and extract). The method was applied to blood samples from a healthy volunteer administrated a single 100mg dose and to a case sample concerning an impaired driver, which confirmed its applicability in human pharmacokinetic studies as well as in toxicological and forensic investigations.