Determination of maprotiline in plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography with chemiluminescence detection

Luminol-type chemiluminescence derivatization reagents for liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis

The present paper provides the principles for chemiluminescence of luminol-type compounds and their wide and powerful application to the detection system in liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis as derivatization reagents. The reagents can be classified into two types, chemiluminescence labeling and chemiluminogenic reagents. The former reagents are highly chemiluminescent themselves and used for tagging their intense chemiluminophores to analytes, whereas the latter are weakly chemiluminescent but generate intense chemiluminescence by reaction with analytes. The liquid chromatographic methods utilizing chemiluminescence derivatizing reactions with luminol-type reagents allow the analytes to be detected at pmol-sub-fmol levels. Furthermore, the chemiluminogenic reactions show high selectivity owing to their selective reaction against the analytes permitting facile and reproducible detection.

Gas chromatographic examination of postmortem specimens after maprotiline intoxication

Ingestion of an unknown quantity of Ludiomil (maprotiline)-costed tablets in a suicide is described. Although maprotiline is known for over 20 years now, relatively few cases of intoxications due to maprotiline overdose have been reported. The authors report a new and quick method to analyze and determine maprotiline and N-desmethylmaprotiline concentration in body fluids and postmortem specimens. The analytes and an internal standard (amitriptyline) were extracted from alkalinized samples into ethyl acetate before GC-NPD analysis. The proposed method resulted in a rapid procedure most useful in cases of deliberate poisoning with the tetracyclic antidepressant drug Ludiomil.