Simultaneous determination of reboxetine and O-desethylreboxetine enantiomers using enantioselective reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography.

Current knowledge of stereoselective pharmacokinetics and different potencies of drug enantiomers requires the performance of stereoselective analysis during therapeutic drug monitoring in clinical practice. However, in the case of the new antidepressant drug reboxetine, no effort has been made so far to find a such a suitable system. Therefore, as a step towards developing an enantioselective bioanalytical method for reboxetine and the O-desethylreboxetine metabolite, three stereoselective chromatographic approaches have been investigated. Several chiral columns were tested, among them Chiral-AGP, ChiraGrom 2 and Chiral-CBH, which were able to simultaneously separate the two compounds into enantiomers in total running times of 28, 18 and 12 min, respectively.

Measurement of paclitaxel and its metabolites in human plasma using liquid chromatography/ion trap mass spectrometry with a sonic spray ionization interface.

A quantitative liquid chromatography/ion trap mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous determination of paclitaxel, 6alpha-hydroxypaclitaxel and p-3'-hydroxypaclitaxel in human plasma has been developed and validated. 6alpha-,p-3'-Dihydroxypaclitaxel was also quantified using paclitaxel as a reference and docetaxel as an internal standard. The substances were extracted from 0.500 mL plasma using solid-phase extraction. The elution was performed with acetonitrile and the samples were reconstituted in the mobile phase. Isocratic high-performance liquid chromatography analysis was performed by injecting 50 microL of reconstituted material onto a 100 x 3.00 mm C12 column with a methanol:1% trifluoroacetic acid/ammonium trifluoroacetate in H(2)O 70:30 mobile phase at 350 microL/min. The [M+H](+) ions generated in the sonic spray ionization interface were isolated and fragmented using two serial mass spectrometric methods: one for paclitaxel (transition 854 --> 569 & 551) and the dihydroxymetabolite (transition 886 --> 585 & 567) and one for the hydroxy metabolites (transition 870 --> 585 & 567; transition 870 --> 569 & 551) and docetaxel ([M+Na](+), transition 830 --> 550). Calibration curves were created ranging between 0.5 and 7500 ng/mL for paclitaxel, 0.5 and 750 ng/mL for 6alpha-hydroxypaclitaxel, and 0.5 and 400 ng/mL for p-3'-hydroxypaclitaxel. Adduct ion formation was noted and investigated during method development and controlled by mobile phase optimization. In conclusion, a sensitive method for simultaneous quantification of paclitaxel and its metabolites suitable for analysis in clinical studies was obtained.

Determination of serum reboxetine enantiomers in patients on chronic medication with racemic reboxetine.

The chiral compound reboxetine is used as a selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor (NARI) for the treatment of major depressive disorders. The pharmacokinetic variability of the enantiomers of the drug (S,S- and R,R-reboxetine) was studied using stereoselective high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection in a controlled clinical monotherapy situation (trial I) and a naturalistic clinical setting (trial II). Trial I included patients receiving racemic reboxetine as 6-month monotherapy for treatment of major depressive disorder. Trough level serum samples in steady state were analyzed for the concentration of the reboxetine enantiomers in study weeks 4, 12, and 24. In a therapeutic drug monitoring setting (trial II), 47 patients on doses ranging from 4 to 16 mg daily, including much polypharmacy, trough level steady-state serum samples were analyzed by the same bioanalytical method. Data from trials I and II were assessed to determine the inter- and intraindividual pharmacokinetic outcomes. The results showed that the median S,S/R,R ratio in steady state was 0.5 and ranged from 0.22 to 0.88. It was also shown that women have an approximately 30% higher S,S/R,R ratio than men. The S,S/R,R ratios of reboxetine were not found to correlate with reboxetine concentrations. To investigate the NARI activity of a circulating serum reboxetine concentration, a recalculation of the determined enantiomeric concentrations to previously demonstrated experimental NARI potencies of the drug enantiomers was performed. This partly novel concept of estimating pharmacodynamic activity showed that the serum NARI activity in women tended to be higher than in men at a given reboxetine concentration. In conclusion, the variability in the NARI activity per nmol/L reboxetine and the variability in the concentration outcome of the reboxetine enantiomers may justify the use of enantioselective drug monitoring in the clinic. The gender aspects of the drug have to be further assessed.