Determination of Glutethimide in Biological Fluids

Gas chromatographic determination of glutethimide in biological fluids: An analytical chemistry experiment

“…The primary reason for developing this assay was the need for a sensitive, specific quantitative method of analyzing glutethimide on a routine basis for suspected overdose patients admitted to the University of Southern California-Los Angeles County (USC-LAC) Medical center. Although there are several methods available to detect glutethimide (1)(2)(3), quantitation has become important in predicting patient prognosis (4,5) and courses of treatment, and none of the quantitative methods previously developed (6)(7)(8) meet all of the above requirements.…”

“…In our undergraduate course in pharmaceutical analysis we used a Varian 600D chromatograph equipped with a Stainless Steel column and were able to accommodate 125 students on the experiment, each spending about 4-6 hr of laboratory time. The students worked in groups of [4][5][6] and constructed standard curves from solutions already prepared for them. They were given unknowns of glutethimide in aqueous solution and simply extracted with diehloromethane.…”

Recovery in severe glutethimide poisoning

“…The pupils were fixed and dilated and she was unresponsive to painful stimuli although respiration was spontaneous and adequate. The serum glutethimide level was estimated by the method of Goldbaum, Williams & Koppanyi (1960) to be 11 9 mg/ 100 ml and, despite pharmacological advice that the procedure was unlikely to be effective because the drug was predominantly bound to tissues, haemodialysis was started. She was given intramuscular digitalis and an attempt was made to maintain her blood pressure with intravenous noradrenaline ('Levophed') in a dose of 8 mg/500 ml of infusion.…”

The Role of Separations in Organic Analysis

“…A color reaction was run on a chloroform extract. Glutethemide in biological fluids was extracted with chloroform (22). The chloroform was evaporated and the ultraviolet absorbance of the residue was determined in 0.2N KOH.…”