Multicomponent determination of 4-hydroxycoumarin anticoagulant rodenticides in blood serum by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection.

A sensitive liquid chromatographic method was developed for the analysis of 4-hydroxycoumarin anticoagulant rodenticides in blood serum. The method can simultaneously measure the serum levels of five anticoagulant rodenticides: brodifacoum, bromadiolone, coumatetralyl, difenacoum, and warfarin. Serum proteins are precipitated with acetonitrile and the supernatant is mixed with ethyl ether. The organic phase is separated, evaporated to dryness, and the residue subjected to chromatographic analysis. The anticoagulants are separated by reversed-phase gradient chromatography with fluorescence detection at an excitation wavelength of 318 nm and emission wavelength of 390 nm. Extraction efficiencies of 68.1 to 98.2% were obtained. The within-run precision (CV) ranged from 2.19 to 3.79% and the between-run precision (CV) from 3.72 to 9.57%. The anticoagulants can be quantitated at serum levels of 10 to 20 ng/mL.