Determination of captopril in human serum by high performance liquid chromatography using solid-phase extraction

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Clinical Chemistry
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Captopril is a crucial medication for hypertension and heart failure.
• Accurate and efficient methods for measuring captopril levels in human serum are essential for therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies.
• Existing methods may be time-consuming or lack the required sensitivity and accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a rapid, simple, and sensitive assay for the determination of captopril in human serum.
• To validate the accuracy, recovery, and linearity of the developed assay.
• To assess the suitability of the method for routine clinical monitoring and pharmacokinetic investigations.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel assay involving silica gel cartridge extraction of captopril adducts from human serum.
• Derivatization of captopril with p-bromophenacyl bromide (pBPB) to form a stable adduct.
• Analysis of the captopril-pBPB adduct using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with UV detection.

Main Results:

• The assay demonstrated high recovery exceeding 94%.
• Analytical responses were linear over a wide concentration range (50–1000 ng/ml).
• The method exhibited excellent accuracy with relative error not exceeding 3.7% and coefficients of variation between 3.7-7.7%.

Conclusions:

• The developed assay is accurate, rapid, and sensitive for captopril determination in human serum.
• The method eliminates the need for time-consuming evaporation-concentration steps.
• This assay is suitable for routine clinical monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies of captopril.