title: Liquid chromatographic determination of the plasma concentrations of cefotaxime and desacetylcefotaxime in plasma of critically ill patients.
abstract: A method for the simultaneous determination of cefotaxime (CTX) and desacetylcefotaxime (DES) in plasma was developed, using acetonitrile protein precipitation and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV-detection at 285 nm. Desacetylcefotaxime was also analysed after conversion in highly acidic medium to its lactone form (DES-lactone). The chromatographic separation was performed on a C18 Aqua column. The lower limit of quantitation was 1 microg/ml for CTX and 0.5 microg/ml for DES and DES-lactone, using 25 microl of plasma samples. The linearity of the calibration curves was satisfactory as indicated by correlation coefficients of > or =0.990. The within-day and between-day precisions were <12% (n = 18) for the two products and the accuracy was between 88 and 101%. The developed HPLC method was applied for CTX and DES determination in plasma samples of critically ill patients after continuous intravenous infusion of CTX.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Heymans Institute of Pharmacology, Ghent University, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. marietherese.rosseel@ugent.be
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Rosseel
authors.forename: K H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Vandewoude
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000097:blood*; D002138:Calibration; D002439:Cefotaxime / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000097:blood*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; C029281:desacetylcefotaxime; D002439:Cefotaxime