The identification and quantitation of triamterene in blood and urine from a fatal aircraft accident victim.

Triamterene, a diuretic drug used in combination with other drugs for the treatment of hypertension, was found in the blood and urine of a fatal aircraft accident victim. The extraction and identification of triamterene is difficult. It exhibits poor extraction efficiency using some standard base-extraction procedures, and the parent drug is unsuitable for analysis using gas chromatography. In this case, a thin-layer chromatography solvent system and high-performance liquid chromatography were used to identify and quantitate triamterene in blood and urine. Triamterene is a strong absorber in the ultraviolet region and has an unusual UV spectrum, which simplifies the identification and quantitation of this substance by high-performance liquid chromatography.