Simultaneous determination of trimethoprim,sulphamethoxazole and N4-acetylsulphamethoxazole in serum and urine by high-performance liquid chromatography

The simultaneous determination of trimethoprim, sulphamethoxazole and N⁴-acetyl-sulphamethoxazole in serum and urine by high-performance liquid chromatography using sulphafurazole as internal standard is described. The separation was achieved on a reversed-phase column employing acetic acid—methanol as the mobile phase with spectrophotometric detection at 230 nm. Precise simultaneous quantitative analysis of the relative components has been achieved at levels of 0.1 μg/ml for trimethoprim and 1.0 μg/ml for both sulphamethoxazole and its N⁴-acetyl metabolize using 1 ml of serum or urine.