Incorporation of propyphenazone in beard hair of a migraine patient

The incorporation of propyphenazone in beard hair after consumption of this substance present in the analgesic Migraine-Kranit (Codali) was investigat ed. Because of a migraine attack a volunteer took four tablets of Migraine- Kranit (one tablet contains 150 mg propyphenazone) the first day and two ta blets the second day. Shaved beard hair was collected 48, 72, 96 and 120 h after the first consumption of the analgesic drug, These hair specimens wer e washed (acetone and water), pulverized and then incubated during 2 h in a thioglycolic solution. After solid-phase extraction on C18 columns, propyp henazone was assayed in these extracts by GC/MS operating in selected ion m onitoring mode (m/z 230, 215). Diazepam-d(5) was used as an internal standa rd, in hair specimen 1 (48 h after consumption) the highest concentration w as found (170 pg/mg hair). in hair specimen 2 (72 h) and 3 (96 h) the conce ntration were significantly lower (44 and 18 pg/mg, respectively). After 12 0 h no propyphenazone could be detected (limit of detection: 5 pg/mg hair). These results show that propyphenazone was already in beard hear 2 days af ter consumption, whereas no more presence could be shown after 120 h. As th e time period of 2 days is too short to allow entrapment into the hair matr ix from bloodstream and growing of hair out of the follicle, our results su ggest that incorporation of propyphenazone may be mainly due to excretion i n sweat and subsequent incorporation into the hair. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scien ce ireland Ltd, All rights reserved.