Analytical study on certain abused drugs

Abstract

This thesis consists of five parts: Part 1: Introduction This part includes an introduction on pain killers, their classification, mode of action as well as the prevalence of drugs abuse. Part 2: Literature Review This section includes a general introduction on the historical background, structure, physical, and spectral properties in addition to a review on different reported methods for their analysis. Part 3: Simultaneous determination of Methadone and Cocaine by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with UV detection. In this section, a highly sensitive, precise, selective and validated HPLC-UV method was developed for the simultaneous quantification of Methadone and Cocaine in rat serum and brain tissue samples using a simple and cost-effective liquid-liquid extraction procedure for sample preparation. Serum and brain samples were extracted with the non-polar solvent Hexanes. The HPLC conditions were optimized where both Methadone and Cocaine were separated using a mixture of (A) 5 mM potassium phosphate monobasic in water with 0.1% triethylamine (pH 6.5) and (B) acetonitrile using Waters® Symmetry C18 column (150 × 4.6 mm, 5 µm) connected to Phenomenex Luna® security guard column (4 × 3 mm, 5 µm). Relative standard deviations (RSDs) were no larger than 11.9% for all of the recovery tests. The method was successfully applied to quantify both substances in serum and brain tissue samples obtained from a drug- drug interaction study conducted in rats to investigate the effect of methadone on cocaine PK.

Part 4: Determination of Oxycodone in rat serum and brain tissue samples by Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry. In this part, a new, rapid, precise and sensitive (UPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and for the single determination of Oxycodone in rat serum and brain tissue samples, liquid-liquid extraction technique was used for sample preparation.