Determination of thalidomide and its major metabolites by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A rapid and sensitive isocratic high-performance liquid chromatography assay for the simultaneous and quantitative determination of thalidomide (alpha-phthalimidoglutarimide) and its major metabolites from human serum has been developed. The parent compound and the metabolites can be efficiently separated by reversed-phase chromatography using tetramethylammonium bromide as an ion-pair-forming reagent.