| Posted: Sep 06, 2014 |
Optical nanoparticle sensor to detect blood pressure drugs in blood
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(Nanowerk News) A new method was presented by researchers from Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz to determine one of the drugs used in the treatment of blood pressure.
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In this method, specific nanoparticles have been used as optical sensors. This method has advantages, including low cost and less time, required for the test and needs usual laboratorial devices ("Prussian blue nanoparticles: a simple and fast optical sensor for colorimetric detection of hydralazine in pharmaceutical samples").
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Hydralazine is a drug that is usually used for the treatment of high blood pressure during the pregnancy or in the prevention of heart attacks caused by high blood pressure. A daily dosage of 50-200 milligrams of this drug is usually prescribed. However, excess consumption of the drug causes problems such as headache and pain in joints and muscles. Although there are many methods to determine the amount of the drug, the aim of the researchers was to present a new, fast and accurate method to measure this drug in medical samples.
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To this end, Prussian blue nanoparticles were produced with unique optical, magnetic and catalytic properties, and they were used in this research. The amount of hydralazine existing in medical samples can be measured at micro-molar scales too by using optical properties of the nanoparticles as optical sensor through spectroscopy method.
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The new method is simple, cheap and fast, and it does not require complicated devices such as chromatography to carry out medical sample tests. According to the studies, nanoparticles synthesized in this research are about 1-20 nm in size.
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Among the main advantages of the research, mention can be made of increasing the rate, decreasing the cost of tests and sample evaluation, decreasing the amount of materials and toxic solvents usually used in other methods, and high accuracy and sensitivity.
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