A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for determination of praziquantel in plasma

Abstract

A simple, sensitive, selective and reproducible method based on a reversed-phase chromatography was developed for the determination of praziquantel in human plasma. Praziquantel was separated from the internal standard (diazepam) on a Luna C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm particle size), with retention times of 4.8 and 6.2 min, respectively. Ultraviolet detection was set at 217 nm. The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile and distilled water (70:30, v/v), running through the column at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. The chromatographic analysis was operated at 25 °C. Sample preparation (1 ml plasma) was done by a single step liquid–liquid extraction with the mixture of methyl- tert-butylether and dichloromethane at the ratio of 2:1 (v/v). Calibration curves in plasma at the concentrations 0, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1600 ng/ml were all linear with correlation coefficients better than 0.999. The precision of the method based on within-day repeatability and reproducibility (day-to-day variation) was below 15% (relative standard deviation: R.S.D.). Good accuracy was observed for both the intra-day or inter-day assays, as indicated by the minimal deviation of mean values found with measured samples from that of the theoretical values (below ±15%). Limit of quantification (LOQ) was accepted as 5 ng using 1 ml samples. The mean recovery for praziquantel and the internal standard were greater than 90% for both praziquantel and internal standard. The method was free from interference from the commonly used antibiotic and antiparasitic drugs. The method appears to be robust and has been applied to a pharmacokinetic study of praziquantel in three healthy Thai volunteers following a single oral dose of 40 mg/kg body weight praziquantel.