On-line determination of fluconazole in blood and dermal rat microdialysates by microbore high-performance liquid chromatography

To study the distribution of fluconazole in the dermis of the rat, on-line microdialysis using double-site sampling coupled with a microbore HPLC system was developed. The chromatographic conditions consisted of a mobile phase of 20 mM diammonium phosphate–acetonitrile (75:25, v/v, pH 7.0) pumped through a microbore C18 column at 40 μl/min. The eluent was monitored with UV detector with UZ flow cell (30 mm path length) at 210 nm. A microbore 10-port pneumatic valve fitted with two loops of 1 μl was used to collect and directly inject microdialysates from jugular and dermal probes. The retention time was 5.8 min for fluconazole and 10.1 min for its fluorinated analog, UK-54373 used as a retrodialysis marker. The assay was precise, with inter- and intra-assay relative standard deviation values of 0.64 and 0.71%, respectively, and with a good linearity (r=0.999) in the range of 0.15–20 μg/ml with only 1 μl injected onto the column. The LOD and LOQ values for fluconazole were 0.100 and 0.150 μg/ml, respectively. The applicability of the method was demonstrated by studying the disposition of fluconazole in blood and dermis following i.v. bolus at a dose of 10 mg/kg.