Abstract
Highly sensitive techniques for the quantitative determination of mepirizole (I) and its metabolites are described. The compounds were first extracted from rat serum with dichloromethane, and they were converted to their respective trifluoroacetyl derivatives in isopropyl ether, which could be detected by a gas chromatograph equipped with an electron capture detector. The approximately linear relationships existed between the quantities of these compounds and the sensitivities to electron capture detector in the range of the serum levels as low as several hundred ng. The structures of the trifluoroacetylated derivatives of the metabolites were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
