Simple method for determination of heroin deacetylation in rat and human serum

This study generally supports previous studies (4,6) of deacetylation rates of heroin by whole blood and serum. The greatly accelerated in vitro deacetylation rates noted in the rat, relative to the human, are consistent with the literature, (6), with the exception that rat serum reaction rates were about 60% faster (Table 1). This in vitro study demonstrates an example of widely differing drug metabolic rates between species. The method employs urea as a denaturing agent, which is also nondamaging to the compounds of interest. Previous studies used a variety of methods, while all of the present methods apply one relatively simple technique which is especially suited to rapid enzymatic reactions in fluid media such as whole blood.