title: A rapid solid-phase extraction and HPLC/DAD procedure for the simultaneous determination and quantification of different benzodiazepines in serum, blood and post-mortem blood.
abstract: A rapid and quantitative method for the determination of benzodiazepines using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode-array detection (DAD) is reported. The drugs were extracted from serum, blood or post-mortem blood using C18 extraction columns. Brotizolam was used as internal standard. Experiments with spiked serum/blood samples resulted in recoveries between 75% and 94% for all investigated benzodiazepines. Excellent linearity was obtained over the concentration range 5-1500 ng benzodiazepine/ml. The limit of detection was approximately 2 ng/ml. The detection of low therapeutic serum levels of highly potent benzodiazepines is also possible.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Federal Republic of Germany.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Musshoff
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Daldrup
mesh_terms: D001569:Benzodiazepines / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000097:blood* / Q000737:chemistry; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005554:Forensic Medicine / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*
chemical_list: D001569:Benzodiazepines