Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of dexamethasone in bovine tissues

A sensitive and selective high-performance liquid chromatographic procedure is described for the determination of the synthetic corticosteroid dexamethasone (DXM), in bovine muscle, kidney, liver and fat tissues, using methylprednisolone as the internal standard. Following extraction with ethyl acetate (muscle, kidney and liver) or diethyl ether (fat) and clean-up of the tissue extract, the drug residue was isolated using a C18 solid-phase extraction column. Separation of DXM was achieved by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection at 254 nm. By using this procedure, DXM levels as low as 0.01 mg kg-1 can be detected in muscle, kidney, liver and fat.