Planta Med 2011; 77(14): 1600-1604
DOI: 10.1055/s-0030-1270998
Pharmacokinetic Investigations
Original Papers
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Pharmacokinetic Study of Borneol and Menthol in Rats after Oral Administration of Qingyan Drop Pills

Xuefang Xu1 , Yubo Li1 , 2 , Jipeng Hou1 , Shaozhuo Zhang1 , Yanyan Xu1 , Yang Wang1 , 2 , Yanjun Zhang1 , 2 , Changxiao Liu1 , 3 , Xin He1 , 2
  • 1Faculty of Chinese Materia Medica, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China
  • 2Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China
  • 3Tianjin State Key Laboratory of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics, Tianjin Institute of Pharmaceutical Research, Tianjin, China
Further Information

Publication History

received Oct. 5, 2010 revised March 21, 2011

accepted March 22, 2011

Publication Date:
11 April 2011 (online)

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Abstract

Both borneol and menthol are bioactive substances derived from Chinese herbal medicines. In order to understand the pharmacokinetics of borneol and menthol in Qingyan drop pills, a rapid, sensitive, and simple gas chromatographic (GC) method with flame ionization detection (FID) was developed for the simultaneous determination of borneol and menthol in rat plasma. Sample preparations were carried out by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with an internal standard solution of naphthalene. The analytes and internal standard (IS, naphthalene) were separated well on an HP-1 capillary column. The pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated by a compartmental method using the Phoenix WinNonlin software program (Version 6.0). The standard curves were linear over a wide concentration range of 2.5–50.0 ng/µL (r = 0.9963), 8.7–62.2 ng/µL (r = 0.9994) for both borneol and menthol in plasma, respectively. The limits of quantification (LOQ) of borneol and menthol in plasma were 2.4 ng/µL and 5.0 ng/µL, respectively. The intra-day precisions for borneol and menthol were < or = 10.0 % R. S. D. at the LOQ and < or = 6.0 % at higher concentrations. The average value of Cmax was 18.97 ± 2.71 ng/µL with a Tmax at 20.00 ± 0.00 min for borneol after oral administration of the drop pills; for menthol, the average value of Cmax was 79.02 ± 11.40 ng/µL with a Tmax at 25.00 ± 4.40 min. This validated assay method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of borneol and menthol after oral administration of Qingyan drop pills in rat. The results showed that the kinetics of borneol and menthol can be described by an open one-compartment model. The pharmacokinetic parameters provide some information for clinical administration of Qingyan drop pills.