The determination of acyclovir in sheep serum, human serum, saliva and urine by HPLC

Objective The aim of this study is to determine acyclovir concentration in sera of sheep and human as well as human urine and saliva. Methods Acyclovir determination is achieved on C8 (150x4.6 mm) column by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detector. Extraction of samples with HCIO4 helped to precipitate proteins whilw shortening clean-up steps. Results Compare to prior studies, utilization of 0.02 M HCIO4 organic solvent as a mobile phase reduced the separation expenses. Besides mobile phase was delivered at isocratic condition. Each sample has been reproducible within 10-30 minutes depending on kind of sample. Recovery of acyclovir from sheep sera was 81.6%. After oral administration of 200mg dosage to healthy volunteers, saliva acyclovir concentration reached a level of 1.25 µg/ml±3.4 SE within one hour. Serum acyclovir concentrations seem to be negatively correlated with saliva concentration (r:-0.99, p<0.009). Conclusion Acyclovir concentration in sera of sheep and human as well as human urine and saliva can be easily determined on C8 column by high performance HPLC. The results indicated that saliva may be the one of the major excretion route for acyclovir in healthy individuals.