Simultaneous high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of cefprozil diastereomers in a pharmacokinetic study

Cefprozil, a new oral cephalosporin, consists of a 90:10 cis:trans isomer mixture. Sensitive, specific and reproducible high performance liquid chromatographic methods have been developed for the simultaneous quantification of the two stereoisomers of cefprozil in plasma and urine samples from human and rats. Cephalexin acted as the internal standard. Plasma protein was precipitated with acetonitrile and trichloracetic acid with subsequent extraction of acetonitrile. After vortexing and centrifuging, the aqueous phase was injected onto a reverse phase C8 column. Urine samples were acidified with sodium acetate buffer (pH 3.8) and then directly injected onto a reverse phase C18 column. The detector was set at 280 nm. These methods were applied to determine protein binding of both isomers in human and rat sera, and to perform a pharmacokinetic study in human. Results showed that both isomers bound moderately to serum proteins with no interference by the other isomer. The pharmacokinetic study in human indicated that cefprozil was well absorbed and the cis and trans isomers have similar pharmacokinetics.