The double radio-isotope derivative technique for the assay of drugs in biological material: Part II. The simultaneous determination of opipramol and its deshydroxyethyl metabolite

The neuroleptic drug opipramol and its deshydroxyethyl metabolite can be determined simultaneously in the same biological sample. Known amounts of ¹⁴C-labelled opipramol and ¹⁴C-labelled metabolite are added to the sample to serve as internal standards. After suitable extraction, both compounds are acetylated by ³H-labelled acetic anhydride. Together with μg-amounts of carrier compounds, the O-acetyl derivative of opipramol and the N-acetyl derivative of the metabolite are purified and separated by two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography. Each of the derivatives is isolated and counted for ¹⁴C-and ³H-activity. The ¹⁴C-activities recovered serve to determine the overall yield of the opipramol and metabolite, and to convert the measured ³H-activity to 100 % theoretical yield. From analyses of standard samples, the specific ³H-activities of the acetyl derivatives were calculated, and these values were used to convert the measured ³H-activities from biological samples to concentrations of original opipramol and metabolite. For both compounds the standard deviations of blank samples were ±1 ng ml^?1. For concentrations up to 100 ng ml^?1 the standard deviation was ±3 ng ml^?1.