Journal of Analytical & Bioanalytical Techniques
Open Access

Research Article

Simultaneous Determination of Morphine, Morphine Glucuronides (M3G, M6G) and Oxycodone in Human Plasma by High-performance Liquid Chromatography

¹Department of Drug Information and Communication, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-8675, Japan

²Yell Pharmacy Group Co., Ltd, 1503-2-10-45 Hijima-cho, Kochi, 780-0066, Japan

³Department of Clinical Education and Research, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-8675, Japan

*Corresponding Author:

Tomoya Sakurada
Department of Drug information and Communication
Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Chiba University,1-8-1 Inohana
Chuo-ku, Chiba, 260-8675, Japan
Tel: (81-43)226-2884
Fax: (81-43)226-2884
E-mail: sakurat@p.chiba-u.ac.jp

Received date: August 31, 2010; Accepted date: September 29, 2010; Published date: October 01, 2010

Citation: Sakurada T, Zusi S, Kobayashi E, Satoh N, Ueda S (2010) Simultaneous Determination of Morphine, Morphine Glucuronides (M3G, M6G) and Oxycodone in Human Plasma by High-performance Liquid Chromatography. J Anal Bioanal Tech 1:101. doi: 10.4172/2155-9872.1000101

Copyright: © 2010 Sakurada T, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Morphine and oxycodone are widely used as analgesic drugs for cancer pain. Frequently, morphine and oxycodone are given alternately to avoid adverse drug reactions. Morphine is metabolized primarily into two glucuronide metabolites, morphine-3-glucuronide and morphine-6-glucuronide to be pharmacologically active. Morphine-3-glucuronide and morphine-6-glucuronide have neuroexcitatory action and analgesic activity, respectively. Oxymorphone, a metabolite of oxycodone, has an analgesic effect, however it is so small that it can be neglected when considering oxycodone. The pharmacological effects of these drugs and also their metabolites have been reported in experimental papers, but in humans, the relationships between these plasma concentrations and the clinical effects remain unclear. Also the necessity for simultaneous determination of both drugs has been suggested because opioid rotation is performed clinically. However, to date there is no study which has simultaneously determined these four drugs, and also achieved a high recovery. In this paper, in order to perform a reliable pharmacokinetic study of cancer pain patients receiving morphine and oxycodone, an easy, rapid, sensitive and selective analytical method was proposed and validated.

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