Digoxin and metabolites in urine and feces: a fluorescence derivatization--high-performance liquid chromatographic technique.

A high-performance liquid chromatography method is described for the determination of digoxin and its metabolites digoxigenin, digoxigenin monodigitoxoside, digoxigenin bis-digitoxoside and dihydrodigoxin (20S and 20R) excreted in urine and feces. The urine sample or fecal supernatant is extracted with methylene chloride in the presence of digitoxigenin or digitoxin as internal standard. Pre-column derivatization is achieved using 1-naphthoyl chloride with subsequent separation of the derivatized compounds on either a normal- or reversed-phase system with fluorescence detection. Recoveries for digoxin and all metabolites from fecal samples were in the range 60-74%, which is comparable to that previously determined for urine samples. Standard curve data revealed linearity over a wide range of concentrations. Coefficients of variation for the analysis were less than 10% for all compounds over a range of 5-125 ng per ml urine and 10-250 ng per 200 mg feces. Peaks for digoxin and metabolites in urine and feces were obtained when human excreta were analyzed.