Simultaneous analysis of digitoxin and its clinically relevant metabolites using high-performance liquid chromatography and radioimmunoassay.

A specific assay for determining the urinary excretion of unchanged digitoxin and its metabolites is described. The procedure includes solvent extraction of urine at pH 8.5, reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and radioimmunoassay (RIA) of equivalent fractions. Confidence limits showed good linearity and precision of recovery and high sensitivity, accuracy and specificity. Cross-reactivities were high for digitoxigenin (DGTN) and digitoxigenin bisdigitoxoside (Bis-DGTN), they were low for digitoxigenin monodigitoxoside (Mono-DGTN) or digoxin when [125I]digitoxin RIA was used. The interference of endogenous compounds in urine in the RIA was overcome by using HPLC. Compared with results reported in the literature, the urinary recovery of unchanged digitoxin was lower, being only 8.11 +/- 1.51% of the dose administered. Amounts of 6.52 +/- 1.31% were excreted hydrolysed as Bis-DGTN, Mono-DGTN, DGTN or C12-hydroxylated as digoxin.