Combined supercritical fluid extraction/solid-phase extraction with octadecylsilane cartridges as a sample preparation technique for the ultratrace analysis of a drug metabolite in plasma.

Supercritical fluid extraction was coupled with solid-phase extraction using octadecylsilane cartridges for the selective isolation of ultratrace levels of a drug metabolite, mebeverine alcohol, from plasma. Plasma was directly applied to the extraction cartridge, the cartridge was washed to remove protein and then extracted under supercritical conditions using CO2/5% methanol. The effluent from the extraction cell was bubbled through a small volume of 2-propanol to trap the extracted mebeverine alcohol. The effects of extraction pressure and temperature on analyte recovery were examined. The absolute recovery, selectivity, precision, and accuracy of the combined supercritical fluid extraction/solid-phase extraction approach were compared to those of conventional solid-phase extraction using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in the selected-ion monitoring mode. Mebeverine alcohol was used as a model compound, and dog plasma was employed as the biological matrix for these studies.