Quantitative simultaneous determination of eight common antiepileptic drugs and metabolites by liquid chromatography

Specific antiepileptic drug (AED) concentrations in serum are believed to cause therapeutic effects in individual patients. Communication between the clinician and the laboratory performing the drug level determinations is therefore essential for safe and effective medication. The now common practice of multiple drug therapy preferably requires simultaneous separation and quantitation of the various drugs and their metabolites. The advantages and disadvantages of current AED analysis methods are discussed. Liquid chromatography (LC) was found to be the most versatile technique for routine and research analysis and can be applied to the determination of common, less common and new AED and metabolites. Carbamazepine and its metabolite, carbamazepine-10,11-epoxide, were determined with high accuracy. The sample preparation procedures, the internal standards, and mode of LC separation used for the analysis are given. The chromatographic parameters for optimized resolution and analysis are given. The chromatographic parameters for optimized resolution and analysis time of eight AEDs and metabolites were devised with special consideration for the influence of the oven temperature on resolution. About 300 patient serum samples were analyzed by automatic unattended operation. By this method some 50 samples per day can be extracted and analysed. Quantitative results achieved by LC and gas liquid chromatography (GLC) on the same patient samples are reported and chromatograms discussed. Peak scanning was used to demonstrate the presence of compounds which could eventually interfere with the detection of phenylethylmalonamide. The overall accuracy of the employed LC method, the repeatability of retention times on three different columns, and the measured ranges of AED concentrations are reported.