Bio-analytically fluorimetric method for estimation of ertapenem in real human plasma and commercial samples; application to pharmacokinetics study.

Ertapenem (EPM) has been recently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (US-FDA) as an antimicrobial drug. EPM has a broad spectrum of action against different bacterial strains and is most commonly prescribed in Egypt for the treatment of Klebsiella pneumonia. In this study, EPM was estimated using a sensitive and selective spectrofluorimetric method for human plasma and pharmaceutical vials. The measured fluorescence (at 540 nm) was obtained from reaction of EPM with 0.05% w/v benzofurazan (NBD-Cl) using 0.1 M borate buffer pH 8.8 after excitation at 460 nm. The fluorometric linear range was stable from 10 to 350 ng ml . The lower limit of detection and the lower limit of quantitation were found to be 2.13 and 6.47 ng ml respectively. Many factors such as pH, temperature, heating time, and NBD-Cl concentration were optimized. The presented work was validated according to International Council for Harmonisation guidelines and bio-analytically validated using FDA recommendations. The significant finding of this study, sensitivity, was successfully applied in Egypt for a pharmacokinetic application and commercial vials. Pharmacokinetic parameters were studied and the result, recorded as C of EPM, was found to be 83.60 μg ml after infusion of 0.5 g of Invanz® for 30 min. AUC was found to be 320 ± 30.2 μ.h ml .