Quantitative determination of semisynthetic cephamycins in human serum and urine by ion-exchange, reversed-phase and ion-pair chromatography.

High-performance liquid chromatographic methods have been developed for the determination of semisynthetic cephamycins: cefoxitin, cefmetazole and cefminox in human serum and urine samples. Serum samples spiked with each cephamycin were combined with an equal volume of methanol to remove proteins and, after centrifugation, and aliquot of the supernatant was analysed by ion-exchange, reversed-phase and ion-pair chromatography with hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide as the ion-pairing agent. Urine samples were diluted, filtered and analysed by same chromatographic procedure. The cephamycins were detected by their ultraviolet absorbance (265-272 nm). It was possible to determine concentrations of cephamycins to 0.2 micrograms/ml in serum 2 micrograms/ml in urine samples with a good level of reproducibility and accuracy.

Determination of piperacillin and mezlocillin in human serum and urine by high-performance liquid chromatography after derivatisation with 1,2,4-triazole.

High-performance liquid chromatographic methods have been developed for the determination of piperacillin and mezlocillin in human serum and urine samples. The methods involve ultrafiltration of samples followed by reaction with 1.5 M 1, 2, 4-triazole and 0.5 x 10(-3) M mercury (II) chloride in solution (pH 8.50) at 50 degrees C for 15 min. The resulting products were separated on a C18 column following stabilisation in an eluent containing sodium thiosulphate. They were detected at 323 nm for both penicillins. The methods have been applied to assays applied to assays of these penicillins in human serum and urine samples. The procedures, which permit the determination of penicillin concentration down to 0.1 microgram m1-1 in serum and 1 microgram m1-1 in urine samples, are specific to intact penicillins without interference from corresponding penicilloates [see J. Haginaka et al., Anal. Sci. 1 (1985) 73]. At concentrations of 1-500 micrograms ml-1 for each compound, the within- and between-day precisions were 1.8-4.8 and 3.7-6.9, respectively. The accuracy was ca. 100% for all samples assayed.