Simultaneous analysis of phenobarbital and p-hydroxyphenobarbital in biological fluids by GLC-chemical-ionization mass spectrometry.

A sensitive and specific GLC-chemical-ionization mass spectrometric method was developed for the simultaneous assay of phenobarbital (I) and p-hydroxyphenobarbital (II) in biological fluids (urine and plasma) using stable isotope analogs of the compounds as internal standards. After extraction, the compounds were methylated with diazomethane and quantitated by GLC-chemical-ionization mass spectrometry. The detection limit of the method was 0.1 micrograms/ml for both compounds. The intraday precision (RSD) for 0.4-2.4 micrograms/ml was < 2% for I and < 4% for II. The interday precision for 0.55 and 2.11 micrograms/ml of each compound was 5.5 and 2.9% for I and 7.3 and 5.0% for II, respectively. This method has been applied in several pharmacokinetic studies.