Determination of plasma testosterone using a simple liquid chromatographic method

Abstract

A simple and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method using ultraviolet detection was developed for the determination of testosterone in human plasma. Testosterone and the internal standard, griseofulvin, were extracted from 0.50 ml plasma sample using a mixture of dichloromethane–2,2,4-trimethylpentane (3:2, v/v). The mobile phase, consisted of 0.02 M sodium dihydrogenphosphate–acetonitrile–methanol (51:47:2, v/v) adjusted to pH 3.1 and delivered to a C 18 analytical column (150×4.6 mm I.D., 4 μm particles) at a flow-rate of 1 ml/min while the detection wavelength was set at 240 nm with a sensitivity range of 0.005 a.u.f.s. The method has a quantification limit of 1.6 ng/ml. Recoveries of testosterone were all greater than 92% over the linear concentration range of 1.6–400 ng/ml while that of griseofulvin was approximately 95%. The within- and between-day RSD values were all less than 8% while the accuracy values ranged from 96.0 to 106.0% over the concentration range studied. The method was applied to the analysis of early morning plasma testosterone levels of 12 healthy human male volunteers. The levels were found to range from 3.1 to 8.4 ng/ml, within the normal range reported in the literature.