Simultaneous high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of suxibuzone and its metabolites in plasma and urine.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method is described for the simultaneous determination of the anti-inflammatory agent suxibuzone and its metabolites, 4-hydroxymethylphenylbutazone, phenylbutazone, oxyphenbutazone, and gamma-hydroxyphenylbutazone, in plasma and urine. Acidified plasma or urine is extracted with benzenecyclohexane (1:1). The organic extract is reduced to dryness and the resulting residue is redissolved in methanol. Aliquots of this solution are chromatographed on a reversed-phase column using a mobile phase of methanol--0.5 M KH2PO4 (linear gradient from 0 to 100% methanol at 8% min with a flow rate of 2.0 ml/min) on a high-performance liquid chromatograph equipped with a UV absorbance detector (254 nm). Detection is limited to 0.10 microgram/ml for suxibuzone and 4-hydroxymethylphenylbutazone and to 0.05 microgram/ml for the other metabolites.