Simultaneous liquid chromatographic determination of lamotrigine, oxcarbazepine monohydroxy derivative and felbamate in plasma of patients with epilepsy

A very simple and fast method has been developed and validated for simultaneous determination of the new generation antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) lamotrigine (LTG), oxcarbazepine's (OXC) main active metabolite monohydroxycarbamazepine and felbamate in plasma of patients with epilepsy using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with spectrophotometric detection. Plasma sample (500 μL) pre-treatment was based on simple deproteinization by acetonitrile. Liquid chromatographic analysis was carried out on a Synergi 4 μm Hydro-RP, 150 mm × 4 mm I.D. column, using a mixture of potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer (50 mM, pH 4.5) and acetonitrile/methanol (3/1) (65:35, v/v) as the mobile phase, at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The UV detector was set at 210 nm. Calibration curves were linear (mean correlation coefficient >0.999 for all the three analytes) over a range of 1-20 μg/mL for lamotrigine, 2-40 μg/mL for monohydroxycarbamazepine and 10-120 μg/mL for felbamate. Both intra and interassay precision and accuracy were lower than 7.5% for all three analytes. Absolute recoveries ranged between 100 and 104%. The present procedure describes for the first time the simultaneous determination of these three new antiepileptic drugs. The simple sample pre-treatment, combined with the fast chromatographic run permit rapid processing of a large series of patient samples.