New perspectives for the determination of naltrexone and its metabolite used in the treatment of addiction for new generation opioids

Opioids which are classified as new psychoactive substances that use disorder (OUD) is a growing global problem. To prevent this addiction, Naltrexone (NTX) is an opioid antagonist used for treatment that has been widely used for the last 50 years. Thanks to its long bioavailability, 6-β-Naltrexol, the major metabolite, ensures the continuity of the effect of Naltrexone. However, the extraction methods and analysis techniques used for naltrexone and main metabolite 6-β-Naltrexol are still very limited. In this study, it is aimed to develop new methodologies with different chromatographic techniques by creating a sensitive, fast, and low detection limit for Naltrexone and its main metabolite (6-β-Naltrexol) using commercial plasma. The developed LLE method was fully validated according to the ICH Guidelines and the LOQ of the method was 0.5 and 0.3 ng/mL respectively, LOD of the method was found 1 ng/ml for NTX and 6BNTX. The validation characteristics showed that the optimized method is precise and accurate enough.