Determination of Nicotine in Libyan Smokers' Urine Compared with that of Nonsmokers using Reversed Phase – High Performance Liquid Chromatog-raphy (RP-HPLC)

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the levels of nicotine in twenty urine samples taken from ten smokers and ten non-smokers in Libya. Each volunteer was required to complete a questionnaire before providing the urine sample. The evaluation of the nicotine concentrations was carried out by means of a simple, rapid, cost effective but reliable, one-step extraction technique-reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography which was developed and validated for this purpose. The criteria and factors taken into consideration for this evaluation and validation include the linearity, precision, accuracy, limit of detection, and limit of quantitation. The urine samples from the smokers presented nicotine concentrations in the range of 0.037-1.979 µg/ml, with an average of 0.663 µg/ml. The range of the nicotine concentrations in non-smokers, on the other hand, was from 0.017-1.331 g/ml, where 0.273 µg/ml is the average value. Statistical analyses show that the nicotine concentrations were very significant in the smoker samples in contrast with the nonsmoker samples