Evaluation of a spectrofluorimetric method for the selective determination of thalidomide in pharmaceutical tablets, urine and blood serum

A spectrofluorimetric analytical methodology for the determination of thalidomide in pharmaceutical formulations, blood serum and urine was developed and evaluated in terms of sensibility and selectivity. Efforts were spent on the maximization of thalidomide fluorescence signal and on the increasing of selectivity when analyzing complex samples, specially, in samples containing sulfanilamide, a strongly fluorescent concomitant that can be used in association with thalidomide. Maximum signal was observed with optimized composition of the solvent system and pH. Approaches to enable selective determination of thalidomide in the presence of sulfanilamide were tested and compared. Better results were achieved using the combined use of acidic medium and UV treatment. For urine and blood serum samples, a solid phase extraction (on a C₁₈ cartridge) was found to be practical, enabling good recovery results. Limit of detection (3S_b/m) was estimated to be 1.2 μg l⁻¹, approximately 100 times better than the ones reported for the routine UV absorption HPLC methods. This low-cost spectrofluorimetric methodology was found to be very simple and enabled excellent recoveries when analyzing analyte spiked biological fluids as well as thalidomide based commercial and laboratory made pharmaceutical formulations.