The incorporation of
propyphenazone in beard hair after consumption of this substance present in the
analgesic Migraine-Kranit (Codali) was investigated. Because of a
migraine attack a volunteer took four
tablets of
Migraine-Kranit (one
tablet contains 150 mg
propyphenazone) the first day and two
tablets the second day. Shaved beard hair was collected 48, 72, 96 and 120 h after the first consumption of the
analgesic drug. These hair specimens were washed (
acetone and water), pulverized and then incubated during 2 h in a thioglycolic
solution. After solid-phase extraction on C18 columns,
propyphenazone was assayed in these extracts by GC/MS operating in selected ion monitoring mode (m/z 230, 215). Diazepam-d5 was used as an internal standard. In hair specimen 1 (48 h after consumption) the highest concentration was found (170 pg/mg hair). In hair specimen 2 (72 h) and 3 (96 h) the concentration were significantly lower (44 and 18 pg/mg, respectively). After 120 h no
propyphenazone could be detected (limit of detection: 5 pg/mg hair). These results show that
propyphenazone was already in beard hear 2 days after consumption, whereas no more presence could be shown after 120 h. As the time period of 2 days is too short to allow entrapment into the hair matrix from bloodstream and growing of hair out of the follicle, our results suggest that incorporation of
propyphenazone may be mainly due to excretion in sweat and subsequent incorporation into the hair.