Determination of tranexamic acid in human serum by high-performance liquid chromatography using selective pre-column derivatization with phenyl isothiocyanate.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for determination of tranexamic acid in human serum using a selective derivatization has been developed. Tranexamic acid in the sample was allowed to react with phenyl isothiocyanate to form the phenylthiocarbamoyl derivative. Interfering alpha-amino acids in the sample were eliminated by selective derivatization to phenylthiohydantoin derivatives by acid treatment of the phenylthiocarbamoyl derivatives followed by solvent extraction. Then, the sample was analysed by conventional high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection. The limit of detection of this method for serum sample was 0.2 micrograms/ml at a signal-to-noise ratio of 2. This method gave results comparable with those obtained by amino acid analysis (regression line: y = 0.4531x-0.02596, r = 0.9998, n = 21).