Simultaneous determination of furathiocarb and metabolites in biological tissues high-performance liquid chromatography and post-column derivatization

A new method to determine simultaneously the amount of furathiocarb and met abolites: carbofuran, 3-hydroxycarbofuran, and 3-ketocarbofuran in biologic al tissues such as liver and kidney is described. The method consists of ex traction of samples with acetone, filtration, partition, purification of ta rget analytes through a silica gel column and high-performance liquid chrom atographic determination with post-column derivatization. Reasonable recove ries for routine analysis were obtained, and the limits of detection (LOD) with fluorescence detection were 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, and 0.2 mg L-1 for furathio carb, carbofuran, 3-hydroxycarbofuran and 3-ketocarbofuran respectively, wi th a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The present method was successfully applie d to the dermal pharmacokinetic study of furathiocarb in Sprague-Dawley rat s. Carbofuran and 3-hydroxycarbofuran were observed in liver while only car bofuran was detected in kidney.