title: A method for the determination of therapeutic and toxic concentrations of tricyclic antidepressant drugs in post mortem fluids and tissues.
abstract: A sensitive and reliable procedure is presented for the measurement of the common tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) drugs in a variety of biological specimens at therapeutic as well as toxic concentrations. The method employs GC/NPD and a column packed with 3% OV-17 on Chromosorb W-HP. The pH of specimen extraction was optimized at 8.6, and 1-chlorobutane:ethyl ether (3:1) was found to be an efficient solvent for the primary extraction. Recoveries for all TCA drugs were at least 50% for each specimen. Linearity of extraction was observed over a range of therapeutic and toxic concentrations with a correlation coefficient greater than 0.99.
mesh_terms: D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic / Q000032:analysis* / Q000506:poisoning; D006801:Humans; D012997:Solvents; D014018:Tissue Distribution
chemical_list: D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic; D012997:Solvents