HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHIC ASSAY OF PROPOFOL IN HUMAN AND RAT PLASMA AND 14 RAT-TISSUES USING ELECTROCHEMICAL DETECTION

This paper describes a sensitive HPLC-electrochemical detection analyt ical method for determining the concentration of the intravenous anest hetic, propofol, in human or rat plasma or serum and a variety of rat tissues. Internal standard and drug are extracted from serum or plasma and other tissues with pentane. 2,6-tert.-Butylmethylphenol is used a s internal standard. It includes a novel steam distillation procedure for separating the highly lipophilic propofol from skin and fat. The p lasma/serum assay has a precision of 1-4% (C.V.) in the range 10 ng/ml to 1 mu g/ml and permits the assay of 5 ng/ml from 0.1 ml of plasma/s erum. The tissue procedure allows the estimation of 50 ng/g in 0.1 g o f tissue for most of the major organs with less than 2% (C.V.) precisi on. This assay was used to measure propofol concentrations in plasma/s erum and tissue samples in support of a project to develop a physiolog ical pharmacokinetic model for propofol in the rat.