Quantitative gas chromatographic mass spectrometric determination of pinaverium-bromide in human serum

A method has been developed for quantitative determination of pinaverium-bromide, a quaternary ammonium derivative with papaverine-like activity, in human serum. The method involves a chloroform extraction of serum spiked with N-(6,6-dimethyl bicyclo[3.1.1]2-heptenyl-ethoxyethyl) perhydro-1,4-oxazine as internal standard. After evaporation of the solvent, and reduction of the residue with Raney-Nickel, the internal standard and the reduced pinaverium-bromide are re-extracted from the reaction mixture with toluene and analysed isothermally on a fused silica column coated with OV-101. Although chemical ionization with methane revealed intense protonated molecular ions for both pinaverium-bromide and the internal standard, selectivity and sensitivity were significantly lower in comparison with electron impact ionization at 70 e V. Therefore, quantification was performed in the electron impact mode by single ion monitoring of the common fragment ion at m/z 100.2. A linear detector response was observed up to 160 ng ml-1. A within-run assay precision better than 2% CV (n = 5) was found, and a detection limit of 1 ng pinaverium-bromide ml-1 of serum was attained.