Abstract
A rapid, sensitive, and specific determination of enoxacin and its principal metabolite, oxo-enoxacin, in plasma and urine is described. the method, which employs the structurally related compound ciprof loxac in as internal standard, involves a protein precipitation step for plasma and solid-phase extraction for urine. Liquid chromatographic analysis is carried out on a C-18 bonded silica column; the mobile phase consists of 0.1 M citric-acid/acetonitrile employing ammonium perchlorate and tetrabutyl-ammonium hydroxide as ion-pairing agents. Quantitation is performed by UV-detection at 340 nm.
The analytical method was validated by examining the performance characteristics specificity, linearity, precision, accuracy, sensitivity, and recovery. Enoxacin calibration curves were linear between 0.02 and 3.2 μg/ml of plasma and from 0.5 to 125 μg/ml of urine. Limits of quantitation in plasma and urine were 0.01 and 0.5 μg/ml, respectively. For oxo-enoxacin, linear of calibration curves were obtained i n the range 0.05 to 1.6 μg/ml (plasma) and 1 to 50 μg/ml (urine); the respective quantitation limits were approximately 0.02 and 1 μg/ml.
The present assay procedure has been applied to monitoring plasma and urine concentrations in several pharmacokinetic studies in humans and different animal species.