[Determination of apomorphine, sildenafil and alprostadil in medicines for erectile dysfunction by high performance...

A high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analytical method for illicit drugs, apomorphine, sildenafil and alprostadil, in medicines for erectile dysfunction has been developed. The samples were extracted with methanol using ultrasound-assisted extraction. The chromatographic separation was performed on a Zorbax Eclipse XDB-C18 column using acetonitrile-0.5% formic acid aqueous solution as mobile phase. The three compounds were identified by retention time and m/z and quantified by peak area. The results demonstrated that the linear ranges were 50.0 - 5 000.0 microg/L, 10.0 - 1 000.0 microg/L, 40.0 - 4 000.0 microg/L, with detection limits of 20.0, 4.0, 10.0 microg/L for apomorphine, sildenafil and alprostadil, respectively. The average recoveries and the relative standard deviations were 89% - 95% and 9.5% - 11%. The method is simple, rapid, accurate and suitable for the simultaneous determination of these drugs in medicines for erectile dysfunction.