Rapid determination of the synthetic pyrethroid insecticide, deltamethrin, in rat plasma and tissues by HPLC

Deltamethrin (DLM), [(S)-α-cyano-d-phenoxybenzyl-(1R,3R)-e-(2,2 dibromovinyl)-2,2-dimethylcyclo-propane-1-carboxylate], is a pyrethroid insecticide widely used in agriculture and households. There are several methods for analysis of DLM in biological fluids and tissues, but these methods are time consuming. They generally involve the extraction of DLM with lipid-soluble solvents such as n-pentane, n-hexane, diethylether or acetone, and subsequent evaporation of the solvent. A more rapid and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method to analyze DLM in plasma and tissues (liver, kidney, and brain) was developed and validated according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) and International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use guidelines. The limit of detection (S/N of 3/1) for DLM was 0.01 μg/ml for plasma, liver, kidney and brain. The method performances were shown to be selective for DLM and linear over the concentration range 0.01–20.0 μg/ml. For five replications of samples at 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 1.5 and 4.0 μg/ml, intraday precision and accuracy values were in the range of 0.7–13.1% relative standard deviation (%R.S.D.) and 1.8–14.1%Error, respectively. Interday (n = 15) precision and accuracy values at 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 1.5, and 4.0 μg/ml were in the range of 3.2–15.2% (%R.S.D.) and 3.7–14.8%Error, respectively. The absolute recoveries of DLM ranged from 93 to 103% for plasma, 95 to 114% for liver, 97 to 108% for kidney, and 95 to 108% for brain. This method can be quite useful for DLM pharmacokinetic and tissue distribution studies, for which multiple plasma and tissue samples have to be analyzed quickly with high reproducibility.