ABSTRACT
Perillyl alcohol (POH) is currently in phase II clinical trials both as a chemopreventative and chemotherapeutic agent. The present report describes a simple, rapid and sensitive HPLC-UV method to quantify POH in rat plasma. After protein precipitation with acetonitrile, POH was separated using an Agilent Zorbax XDB C(18) column (150 mm x 4.6 mm, 5 microm) with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile-water (40:60, v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0 ml min(-1), and detected at 210 nm. The method has been used successfully to determine trace levels of POH in plasma down to 0.015 microg ml(-1). The pharmacokinetics of POH after intravenous administrations in three formulations, i.e. POH solution (POH-SOL), negatively charged submicron emulsions (POH-SE) and positively charged submicron emulsions (POH-CSSE) were investigated. AUC(0-infinity), MRT, t(1/2alpha) and t(1/2beta) of POH-SE and POH-CSSE were significantly higher, while their total body clearance was lower than those of POH-SOL. In addition, AUC(0-infinity), MRT and t(1/2beta) of POH-CSSE were significantly higher than those of POH-SE. The results indicate that the submicron emulsion formulation significantly increases POH blood concentrations and retention within the systemic circulation.
