A simple liquid chromatographic (LC) method was developed for the determina
tion of fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin, difloxacin, enrofloxacin and saraf
loxacin) in animal tissues. Isolation of fluoroquinolones from biological m
atrices was performed with 5% trichloroacetic acid-acetonitrile (7:3) solut
ion. For clean-up, solid-phase extraction with an SDBI (styrene-divinyloben
zene) cartridge was used. LC analyses were performed with analytical column
(LiChrospher 100 RP-8 5 mu m) and mobile phase (0.025 M O-phosphoric acid-
acetonitrile 70:30, v/v) in ion-pair mode. The whole procedure was validate
d in intra- and inter-assay reproducibility and accuracy determination by s
imultaneously assaying of muscle, liver and kidney samples supplemented wit
h fluoroquinolones at the level of 30 and 60 ng/g, respectively. The statis
tical evaluation demonstrates high absolute recovery (>80%) and low coeffic
ient of variation (<10%) for all analysed samples. The detection limits for
fluoroquinolones were 5 ng/g in muscle, liver and kidney samples. Copyrigh
t (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.