Rapid and sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of nicotine and cotinine in nonsmoker human and rat urines

• Published in: Journal of chromatography. B, Biomedical sciences and applications Biomedical sciences and applications, 1998-04, Vol.708 (1), p.95-101
• Main Authors: Oddoze, C, Pauli, A.M, Pastor, J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid - methods; Cotinine; Cotinine - urine; Evaluation Studies as Topic; Female; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Nicotine; Nicotine - urine; Rats; Sensitivity and Specificity; Smoking; Time Factors; Tobacco Smoke Pollution; Tobacco, tobacco smoking; Toxicology
• ISSN: 0378-4347; 1387-2273
• DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4347(97)00632-4

A simple reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method with paired-ion and UV detection has been developed for the rapid quantification of urinary nicotine and cotinine. A one-step solid–liquid extraction on Extrelut ® was used. Separation from endogenous substances was achieved with a decreasing flow-rate. With 20 ml of urine for extraction, the limit of quantification was 0.5 ng/ml for cotinine and 5 ng/ml for nicotine; linearity was obtained from 50 to 5000 ng/ml. The intra- and inter-day coefficients of variation were less than 9% for cotinine and 30% for nicotine. Average recoveries for cotinine were 92–100% and 47–86% for nicotine. The present method was applied to the urine analysis of smokers, nonsmoker children, and experimental animals.