Effect of an endurance-like exercise on the disposition and detection time of phenylbutazone and dexamethasone in the horse: Application to medication control

Novel eco-friendly spectrophotometric approaches for resolution of fixed dose formulation of phenylbutazone with minor component of dexamethasone: Greenness assessment by AGREE tool

Spectrophotometric resolution of severely overlapped binary mixtures with minor component is challenging. Herein, coupling of mathematical manipulation steps with sample enrichment was conducted on the binary mixture spectrum of Phenylbutazone (PBZ) and Dexamethasone sodium phosphate (DEX) to resolve, for the first time each component separately. Simultaneous determination of both components in a mixture ratio of 1:0.002 was achieved in their zero or first order spectra by the recent factorized response method along with ratio subtraction and constant multiplication methods; all coupled with spectrum subtraction. In addition, a novel second derivative concentration value and second derivative constant value methods were developed for PBZ determination. The concentration of the minor component DEX was obtained, without preliminary separation steps by derivative ratio after sample enrichment by either spectrum addition or standard addition. Spectrum addition approach showed superior characteristics compared to standard addition technique. All proposed methods were placed through a comparative study. Linear correlation was found to be 1.5-18.0 µg/mL for PBZ, and 4.0-45.0 µg/mL for DEX. The proposed methods were validated in accordance with ICH guidelines. The greenness assessment of the proposed spectrophotometric methods was evaluated by AGREE software. Results obtained from the statistical data were evaluated by comparing to one another as well as the official USP methods. These methods offer a cost and time effective platform to analyze bulk materials and combined veterinary formulation.

A clinician's guide to factors affecting withdrawal times for equine therapeutic medications

Equine forensic science can now detect concentrations down to 25 femtograms/mL (parts per quadrillion, ppq) or less in blood and urine. As such, horsemen are increasingly at risk of inadvertent 'positives' due to therapeutic medication 'overages' or trace identifications of dietary or environmental substances. Reviewed here are the factors which determine detection times and 'withdrawal times' for substances administered to horses. Withdrawal times are affected by many factors, including dose, formulation, route and frequency of administration, bioavailability, plasma half-life, sensitivity of the analytical process, the testing matrix (plasma, urine, or other), and the environmental presence and/or persistence of administered substances. Of these factors only dose is known precisely. For any given administration, horse-to-horse differences in the volumes of distribution, systemic clearance, and terminal plasma elimination half-life of substances are major and totally uncontrollable factors driving horse-to-horse variability in withdrawal times. A further complication is that chemically stable medications administered to horses and eliminated in the urine inevitably become part of the environment of the horse. The presence of these substances in the equine environment is increasingly giving rise to trace identifications long after nominal administration of these substances has ceased. Because of the unknown and uncontrollable horse-to-horse variability in medication pharmacokinetics, any therapeutic medication administration to a horse by definition includes the possibility of an inadvertent medication overage. As such, the caveat that there are no guarantees in life most assuredly applies to advisories concerning equine therapeutic medication withdrawal times.

Pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, metabolism, toxicology and residues of phenylbutazone in humans and horses

The presence of horse meat in food products destined for human consumption and labelled as beef has raised several concerns of public interest. This review deals solely with one aspect of these concerns; samples of equine tissue from horses destined for the human food chain have tested positive for the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, phenylbutazone. The safety of some or all such foods for human consumers is a major concern, because it was shown many years ago that phenylbutazone therapy in humans can be associated with life threatening blood dyscrasias. As an initial basis for assessing the potential toxicity of foods containing phenylbutazone and its metabolites, this article reviews (1) the pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, metabolic and toxicological profiles of phenylbutazone, with particular reference to horses and humans; (2) toxicity data in laboratory animals; (3) phenylbutazone residues in food producing species, and (4) as a preliminary assessment, the potential hazard associated with the consumption of horse meat containing phenylbutazone and its metabolites. Since phenylbutazone cannot be classified as a carcinogenic substance in humans, and noting that blood dyscrasias in humans are likely to be dose and treatment duration-dependent, the illegal and erratic presence of trace amount residues of phenylbutazone in horse meat is not a public health issue.

Veterinary medicines and competition animals: the question of medication versus doping control

In racing and other equine sports, it is possible to increase artificially both the physical capability and the presence of a competitive instinct, using drugs, such as anabolic steroids and agents stimulating the central nervous system. The word doping describes this illegitimate use of drugs and the primary motivation of an equine anti-doping policy is to prevent the use of these substances. However, an anti-doping policy must not impede the use of legitimate veterinary medications and most regulatory bodies in the world now distinguish the control of illicit substances (doping control) from the control of therapeutic substances (medication control). For doping drugs, the objective is to detect any trace of drug exposure (parent drug or metabolites) using the most powerful analytical methods (generally chromatographic/mass spectrometric techniques). This so-called "zero tolerance rule" is not suitable for medication control, because the high level of sensitivity of current screening methods allows the detection of totally irrelevant plasma or urine concentrations of legitimate drugs for long periods after their administration. Therefore, a new approach for these legitimate compounds, based upon pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) principles, has been developed. It involves estimating the order of magnitude of the irrelevant plasma concentration (IPC) and of the irrelevant urine concentration (IUC) in order to limit the impact of the high sensitivity of analytical techniques used for medication control. The European Horserace Scientific Liaison Committee (EHSLC), which is the European scientific committee in charge of harmonising sample testing and policies for racehorses in Europe, is responsible for estimating the IPCs and IUCs in the framework of a Risk Analysis. A Risk Analysis approach for doping/medication control involves three sequential steps, namely risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication. For medication control, the main task of EHLSC in the risk management procedure is the establishment of harmonised screening limits (HSL). The HSL is a confidential instruction to laboratories from racing authorities to screen in plasma or urine for the presence of drugs commonly used in equine medication. The HSL is derived from the IPC (for plasma) or from the IUC (for urine), established during the risk assessment step. The EHSLC decided to keep HSL confidential and to inform stakeholders of the duration of the detection time (DT) of the main medications when screening is performed with the HSL. A DT is the time at which the urinary (or plasma) concentration of a drug, in all horses involved in a trial conducted according to the EHSLC guidance rules, is shown to be lower than the HSL when controls are performed using routine screening methods. These DTs, as issued by the EHSLC (and adopted by the Fédération Equestre Internationale or FEI) provide guidance to veterinarians enabling them to determine a withdrawal time (WT) for a given horse under treatment. A WT should always be longer than a DT because the WT takes into account the impact of all sources of animal variability as well as the variability associated with the medicinal product actually administered in order to avoid a positive test. The major current scientific challenges faced in horse doping control are those instances of the administration of recombinant biological substances (EPO, GH, growth factors etc.) having putative long-lasting effects while being difficult or impossible to detect for more than a few days. Innovative bioanalytical approaches are now addressing these challenges. Using molecular tools, it is expected in the near future that transcriptional profiling analysis will be able to identify some molecular "signatures" of exposure to doping substances. The application of proteomic (i.e. the large scale investigation of protein biomarkers) and metabolomic (i.e. the study of metabolite profiling in biological samples) techniques also deserve attention for establishing possible unique fingerprints of drug abuse.

Species differences in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics

Veterinary medicine faces the unique challenge of having to treat many types of domestic animal species, including mammals, birds, and fishes. Moreover, these species have evolved into genetically unique breeds having certain distinguishable characteristics developed by artificial selection. The main challenge for veterinarians is not to select a drug but to determine, for the selected agent, a rational dosing regimen because the dosage regimen for a drug in a given species may depend on its anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, and behaviour as well as on the nature and causes of the condition requiring treatment. Both between- and within-species differences in drug response can be explained either by variations in drug pharmacokinetics (PK) or drug pharmacodynamics (PD), the magnitude of which varies from drug to drug. This chapter highlights selected aspects of species differences in PK and PD and considers underlying physiological and patho-physiological mechanisms in the main domestic species. Particular attention was paid to aspects of animal behaviour (food behaviour, social behavior, etc.) as a determinant of interspecies differences in PK or/and PD. Modalities of drug administration are many and result not only from anatomical, physiological and/or behavioural differences across species but also from management options. The latter is the case for collective/group treatment of food-producing animals, frequently dosed by the oral route at a herd or flock level. After drug administration, the main causes of observed inter-species differences arise from species differences in the handling of drugs (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination). Such differences are most common and of greatest magnitude when functions which are phylogenetically divergent between species, such as digestive functions (ruminant vs. non-ruminant, carnivore vs. herbivore, etc.), are involved in drug absorption. Interspecies differences also exist in drug action but these are generally more limited, except when a particular targeted function has evolved, as is the case for reproductive physiology (mammals vs. birds vs. fishes; annual vs. seasonal reproductive cycle in mammals; etc.). In contrast, for antimicrobial and antiparasitic drugs, interspecies differences are more limited and rather reflect those of the pathogens than of the host. Interspecies difference in drug metabolism is a major factor accounting for species differences in PK and also in PD (production or not of active metabolites). Recent and future advances in molecular biology and pharmacogenetics will enable a more comprehensive view of interspecies differences and also between breeds with existing polymorphism. Finally, the main message of this review is that differences between species are not only numerous but also often unpredictable so that no generalisations are possible, even though for several drugs allometric approaches do allow some valuable interspecies extrapolations. Instead, each drug must be investigated on a species-by-species basis to guarantee its effective and safe use, thus ensuring the well-being of animals and safeguarding of the environment and human consumption of animal products.