Abstract
Saliva is a valuable diagnostic material that, in some cases, may replace blood. However, because of its different composition, its use requires the development of new, or the modification of existing, extraction procedures. Therefore, the aim of the study was to develop a method of saliva purification that would enable the determination of carbamazepine and its metabolite, carbamazepine-10,11 epoxide. When comparing two methods of sample purification (Solid Phase Extration (SPE) and deproteinization), it was found that the second method yielded more favorable results. A 1% formic acid solution in acetonitrile was used for extraction. The samples were shaken and centrifuged, and the supernatant obtained was evaporated and dissolved in a mobile phase, then chromatographically analyzed. The developed method was validated by determining its linearity in the range of 10-5000 ng/mL for both analytes. Intra- and inter-day precision did not exceed 14%. In order to check the usefulness of the method, both analytes were determined in the saliva samples from 20 patients treated with carbamazepine. The content of both analytes was detected and determined in all of the tested samples of saliva. It was found that the method developed is rapid, sensitive, reliable, and can be used to monitor the concentration of carbamazepine and metabolite in patients' saliva.