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Assessment of pheniramine in alternative biological matrices by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

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Abstract

Pheniramine is an over-the-counter antihistamine drug. Its accessibility and low cost made it more popular among drug abusers in Pakistan. In this study, pheniramine was quantified in both conventional and alternative specimens of twenty chronic drug abusers, aged 16–50 years, who were positive for pheniramine in comprehensive toxicological screening for drugs by gas chromatography with mass spectral detection in positive electron impact mode. Pheniramine was extracted from biological specimens using solid phase extraction and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry was employed for quantification. Chromatographic separation was carried out on a Poroshell120EC-18 (2.1 mm × 50 mm × 2.7 µm) column using water-acetonitrile in formic acid (0.1%) mobile phase in gradient elution mode with 500 μL/min flow rate. Positive electrospray ionization mode and multi-reaction monitoring with ion transitions m/z 241.3 → 195.8 and 167.1 for pheniramine and m/z m/z 247.6 → 173.1 for pheniramine-d6 were employed. The quantification method showed good linear ranges of 2–1000 ng/mL in blood, urine, and oral fluid; 2–1000 ng/mg in hair and 5–1000 ng/mg in nail with ≥ 0.985% coefficient of linearity. The retention time of pheniramine was 3.0 ± 0.1 min. The detection and lower quantification limits were 1 ng/mL and 2 ng/mL for blood, urine, oral fluid and hair whereas 2.5 ng/mg and 5 ng/mg for nail, respectively. Mean extraction recovery and ionization suppression ranged 86.3–95.1% and -4.6 to -14.4% in the studied matrices. Intra-day and inter-day precision were 4.1–9.3% and 2.8–11.2%, respectively. Pheniramine levels in specimens of drug abusers were 23–480 ng/mL in blood, 72–735 ng/mL in urine, 25–379 ng/mL in oral fluid, 10–170 ng/mg in hair and 8–86 ng/mg in nail specimens. Alternative specimens are of utmost significance in clinical and medico-legal cases. In this study, authors compared matrix-matched calibration curves to blood calibration curve and obtained results within ± 10%; thereby justifying the use of blood calibration curve for urine, oral fluid, hair, and nail specimens.

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Abbreviations

B:

Blood

Cal:

Calibration curve

U:

Urine

OF:

Oral fluid

H:

Hair

N:

Nail

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to faculty of pharmacy, University of Lahore and clinical and Forensic Toxicology Department, Chughtai Healthcare, Pakistan.

Funding

The submitted study did not receive any grant from the funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan

    Humera Shafi Makhdoom, Majida Mujahid, Saira Afzal & Nisar Hussain

  2. Clinical and Forensic Toxicology Department, Chughtai Healthcare, Lahore, Pakistan

    Humera Shafi Makhdoom & Kashif Barkat

  3. Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan

    Majida Mujahid

  4. Department of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, Iqra University Islamabad Campus, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Kishwar Sultana

  5. Université de Strasbourg, INSERM, Régénérative nanomédecine UMR 1260, Centre de Recherche en Biomédecine de Strasbourg (CRBS), F-67000, Strasbourg, France

    Ali Imran Abid

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  1. Humera Shafi Makhdoom
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Contributions

All the authors participated equally regarding conceptualization, literature search, analysis, interpretation of results, writing and paper revising.

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Correspondence to Ali Imran Abid.

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Ethics approval and consent to participate

The permission was obtained from respondents, participating in this study on an individual consent form. All the participants were also informed about the significance and purpose of the study. Furthermore, the study was also approved by the ethics committee of the University of Lahore. All the procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Lahore, Pakistan.

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Consent has been obtained from all the participants regarding the publication of this study.

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Makhdoom, H.S., Abid, A.I., Mujahid, M. et al. Assessment of pheniramine in alternative biological matrices by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Forensic Sci Med Pathol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-024-00795-7

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