Sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic quantitation of gabapentin in human serum using liquid–liquid extraction and pre-column derivatization with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate

Most of the published methods for analysis of gabapentin, an antiepileptic agent, in human serum are based on the same approach, involving o-phthaldialdehyde derivatization of deproteinized serum samples. The present paper however, describes a new, simple and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method for determination of gabapentin in human serum using liquid–liquid extraction and 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC-Cl) as pre-column labeling agent. The drug and an internal standard (azithromycin) were extracted from serum by salting-out approach using a mixture of dichloromethane–2 propanol (1:1, v/v) as the extracting solvent. The extracted analytes were subjected to derivatization with FMOC-Cl in the presence of phosphate buffer (pH 7). A mobile phase consisting of methanol–0.05 M sodium phosphate buffer (73/27, v/v; pH of 3.9) containing 1 ml/l triethylamine was eluted and chromatographic separation was performed on a Shimpack CLC-C18 (150 mm × 4.6 mm) column. The standard curve was linear over the range of 0.03–20 μg/ml and limit of quantification was 0.03 μg/ml. The performance of analysis was studied and the validated method showed excellent performance in terms of selectivity, specificity, sensitivity, precision and accuracy. No interferences were found from commonly co-administered antiepileptic agents.