Sulpiride pharmacokinetics in humans after intramuscular administration at three dose levels

Pharmacokinetics of the disinhibitory psychotropic agent sulpiride was investigated in 9 healthy male subjects after intramuscular administrations of 50, 100, and 200 mg in a 3 X 3 Latin square design. Plasma and urine concentrations were measured by HPLC for 36 and 48 h, respectively. The lowest detectable concentration was 10 ng/mL. Plasma concentration versus time and urinary excretion rate versus time curves were consistent with an open two-compartment body model, where mean +/- SD apparent half-lives of the absorption from muscle, lambda 1 distribution, and lambda 2 elimination phases were 6.96 +/- 2.64 min, 0.220 +/- 0.120 h, and 6.74 +/- 2.67 h, respectively. The initial volume of distribution was 0.145 +/- 0.063 L/kg, the steady-state volume of distribution was 0.639 +/- 0.184 L/kg, and the total clearance was 89.8 +/- 22.3 mL/min. The microscopic rate constants were k12 = 2.53 +/- 1.13 h-1, k21 = 0.674 +/- 0.197 h-1, and k10 = 0.635 +/- 0.298 h-1. Comparison of total clearance (89.8 mL/min), renal clearance (83.0 mL/min), and renal clearance of unbound drug (97.6 mL/min, f = 0.15) indicated that sulpiride is mainly excreted unchanged by the renal route, 93.1 +/- 6.6% of the administered dose being recovered unchanged in urine. Statistical evaluation of all the above parameters, determined at the three dosage levels, did not show any variations related to dose; the pharmacokinetics of sulpiride, over the dose range tested, was therefore linear and independent of dose. The two-compartment body model proposed was validated by digital computer simulation on a small digital computer (32K).