Therapeutic monitoring of steady-state plasma levels of the N4'-oxide metabolite of fluphenazine in chronically treated schizophrenic patients determined by a specific and sensitive radioimmunoassay

Abstract

Highly specific and sensitive antisera for fluphenazine-N4'-oxide (FLUNO) were obtained from New Zealand white rabbits immunized with a bovine serum albumin conjugate of 7-(3-carboxypropionyl)propchlorperazine-N4'-oxide. One of the antisera was used to develop a radioimmunoassay (RIA) procedure that enabled for the first time the determination of steady-state plasma levels of FLUNO, an active metabolite, in patients treated with oral or intramuscular (i.m.) fluphenazine (FLU). This method has sufficient sensitivity to quantitate accurately 20 pg of FLUNO in 200 microliters of plasma extract with a coefficient of variation of less than 8%. The antiserum had negligible cross-reactivity (less than 2%) with FLU and its major metabolites such as FLU sulfoxide, 7-hydroxy-FLU, and N-deshydroxyethyl-FLU. To confirm that the developed RIA procedure specifically quantitated FLUNO, FLUNO was selectively reduced to FLU by sodium dithionite in plasma samples from patients. A good correlation (r2 = 0.9646) was observed between the total FLU level and the sum of FLU and FLU equivalent to FLUNO determined separately in the same plasma. The steady-state plasma concentrations of FLUNO in patients receiving a daily oral dose of 5 to 20 mg of FLU dihydrochloride ranged from 13 to 378% of that of FLU, whereas this value ranged from 10 to 214% in plasma samples from patients treated with a biweekly intramuscular (i.m.) dose of 5 mg of FLU decanoate.