Enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for bioanalysis and chemical and stereochemical stability study of N-ethylpentedrone.

The first high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed for enantioselective analysis of psychoactive compound N-ethylpentedrone. The method also enabled a detection of phase-1 metabolites of N-ethylpentedrone. Enantiomers some of the phase-1 metabolites were also separated. Application of this method to urine and oral fluid samples from the controlled naturalistic clinical study indicated to no enantioselective metabolism and elimination of N-ethylpentedrone. With the developed method a certain chemical and stereochemical instability of N-ethylpentedrone was also shown. Therefore, the observation about non-enantioselective pharmacokinetics of N-ethylpentedrone can be apparent and caused by post-collection racemization of this compound in the studied biological matrices.