Abstract
The widespread use of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors has attracted broad attention of counterfeiters to develop illicit erectile products with inaccurate amounts, unknown toxicity, and purity of active ingredients. Correspondingly, intake of these products endangers consumer health and needs to be screened for precautionary actions to reduce this risk. Therefore, in this study, a sensitive and rapid analytical method has been developed for simultaneous determination of selected phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors present in illicit erectile medications and human urine. Quantification of the analytes was performed by liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry system. The chromatographic separation was successfully achieved with a run period of 8 min. Low detection limits were obtained in the range of 1.63–9.81 ng/g with relative standard deviations below 7.72% obtained using the replicate measurements of lowest concentration in calibration plots. The analytical performance of the proposed method proved good linearity, low detection limits, good accuracy and precision with high percent recoveries for human urine samples. Developed method was successfully applied to real samples including four different brands of illicit erectile medications. The results obtained revealed the presence of high levels of sildenafil in analyzed samples. The behaviors of selected phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors were also studied in simulated gastric conditions.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 475-483 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Separation Science |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2019 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Funding
This work was supported by Research Fund of the Yildiz Technical University. Project Number: FDK-2017-3186.
Funders | Funder number |
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Yildiz Teknik Üniversitesi | FDK-2017-3186 |
Keywords
- erectile dysfunction
- gastric conditions
- human urine
- illicit erectile medication
- phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors