Recent Advances in Electroanalysis Techniques Used for Morphine in Managing Postoperative Pain

Abstract

Determination of a particular drug in pharmaceutical preparations and biological fluids is critically important in pharmaceutical and medical sciences to avoid its overdose. Effective analysis requires sensitivities at ppb level or even less in the biological fluids with high selectivity. Morphine is a potent analgesic drug that is used to relieve severe pains like postoperative pain, labor pain, and cardiac pain. It is a μ-opioid agonist which acts directly on the central nervous system to relieve pain. It is very important to monitor the doses of morphine in the patient’s body under examination since the overdose may cause disruption to the central nervous system. As the applications of analytical instruments are progressing, modern electrochemical methods are attracting interest for the analysis of therapeutic agents or their metabolites in medical samples since these methods are economic and can detect extremely low concentrations approximately 10 ng/ml. A review of the principles and application of modern electroanalytical techniques, namely, cyclic voltammetry, differential pulse voltammetry, square wave voltammetry, and amperometry, is presented. The use and advantages of these techniques at different electrodes for the detection of morphine have been discussed. The analytical applications of these techniques to pharmaceutical compounds in dosage forms and biological media are also discussed.