Simultaneous determination of beta2-agonists in human urine by fast-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry: method validation and clinical application

Nano optical and electrochemical sensors and biosensors for detection of narrow therapeutic index drugs

For the first time, a comprehensive review is presented on the quantitative determination of narrow therapeutic index drugs (NTIDs) by nano optical and electrochemical sensors and biosensors. NTIDs have a narrow index between their effective doses and those at which they produce adverse toxic effects. Therefore, accurate determination of these drugs is very important for clinicians to provide a clear judgment about drug therapy for patients. Routine analytical techniques have limitations such as being expensive, laborious, and time-consuming, and need a skilled user and therefore  the nano/(bio)sensing technology leads to high interest.

Green spectrofluorimetric determination of salmeterol xinafoate in its pure forms, medicinal commercial formula, and human plasma: Application for stability studies

A natural, accurate, extremely rapid, and precise spectrofluorometric method has been developed and validated for determination of salmeterol (SAL) xinafoate in its medicinal commercial form and spiked human plasma. The native SAL fluorescence has been measured at 415 nm (after 340 nm as excitation) in distilled water. Different factors affecting the native fluorescence consistency of SAL were surveyed and optimized. The suggested procedure was capable of SAL determination over concentrations ranging 200-2000 ng.mL^-1 with excellent correlation coefficient of 0.9995. The limits of detection and quantification were estimated as 44.44 ng mL^-1 and 134.66 ng mL^-1 , respectively. The method has good accuracy and precision. The green spectrofluorometric method was used for determination of SAL in its commercial preparations and the results were in accordance with other reported methods regarding accuracy and precision. Moreover, the proposed procedure was enforced for stability indicating assay of SAL and for SAL determination in spiked human plasma. Nearly no cost, high sensitivity, and wide application make the proposed method ideally suited for analysis of SAL in quality control laboratories.

A Nanosensor Based on Carbon Dots for Recovered Fluorescence Detection Clenbuterol in Pork Samples

Clenbuterol (CLB), a member of β-agonist family, has now been a serious threat to human health due to its illegal usage in the animal feed. In this paper, we designed a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) system consisting of carbon dots (C-dots) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for recovered fluorescence detecting of CLB. In the presence of CLB, CLB molecules can interact with AuNPs via Au-N bonds, preventing the interaction of C-dots and AuNPs, which induced the recover of the fluorescent intensity. Under the optimal conditions, the limit of detection for CLB was 3 nM, with a wide concentration linear range of 8-200 nM (S/N = 3). Meanwhile, the proposed method was successfully applied to detect CLB in pork samples, illustrating it could be used as a reliable, rapid, and cost-effective method for the determination of CLB residues in pork samples.

Rapid determination of anti-estrogens by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in urine: Method validation and application to real samples

A fast screening protocol was developed for the simultaneous determination of nine anti-estrogenic agents (aminoglutethimide, anastrozole, clomiphene, drostanolone, formestane, letrozole, mesterolone, tamoxifen, testolactone) plus five of their metabolites in human urine. After an enzymatic hydrolysis, these compounds can be extracted simultaneously from urine with a simple liquid-liquid extraction at alkaline conditions. The analytes were subsequently analyzed by fast-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (fast-GC/MS) after derivatization. The use of a short column, high-flow carrier gas velocity and fast temperature ramping produced an efficient separation of all analytes in about 4 min, allowing a processing rate of 10 samples/h. The present analytical method was validated according to UNI EN ISO/IEC 17025 guidelines for qualitative methods. The range of investigated parameters included the limit of detection, selectivity, linearity, repeatability, robustness and extraction efficiency. High MS-sampling rate, using a benchtop quadrupole mass analyzer, resulted in accurate peak shape definition under both scan and selected ion monitoring modes, and high sensitivity in the latter mode. Therefore, the performances of the method are comparable to the ones obtainable from traditional GC/MS analysis. The method was successfully tested on real samples arising from clinical treatments of hospitalized patients and could profitably be used for clinical studies on anti-estrogenic drug administration.