Application of adsorption method to the chromatographic analysis of free drug concentration

The development of analytical techniques for estimation of free drug concentration is crucial for the needs of modern pharmacology. Up to now, many different methods of free drug assay have been used. The methods involving isolation of free drug from a sample are most frequently applied because they can be easily adopted for the processing of real samples. Among the methods that do not require free drug isolation only the adsorption method could be promising in application to samples of this kind.The successful use of the adsorption method is possible only if two requirements are fulfilled: (I) the chosen adsorbent does not bind proteins from the sample and (II) the processes of adsorption of the assayed drug on the adsorbent used and on the protein should be independent.This paper discusses the possibilities of application of the adsorption method for determination of free drug concentration using propofol as the model drug. The presented results show that the fulfillment of the above conditions may be very difficult if not impossible not only for propofol, but for other drugs as well.