PharmPK Discussion - Metabolism of morphine

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On 29 Jan 2000 at 15:57:14, PDellobuon.-a-.cs.com sent the message


Question :Is it possible for morphine to be metabolized in vivo to
hydromorphone?  Peter Dello Buono RpH .any info would be greatly appreciated.

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On 3 Feb 2000 at 21:33:37, "Andrew WRIGHT" (andrew.at.pharmacy.uq.edu.au) sent the message


[Hi everyone - I'm sorry if you received multiple messages yesterday.
Our campus mail server much have hiccuped. It looks like things are
back to 'normal' so I'll try sending out a few more messages - db]

To my knowledge no metabolic study of morphine has found
hydromorphone in detectable quantities.  For this reason I  use
hydromorphone as an internal standard in a HPLC-ECD assay for morphine
and two major metabolites (M3G and M6G).
AW.E. Wright, et al.  Ther. Drug. Monitor. 16 (1994) 200.

However to your question, I see no reason why morphine couldn't
theoretically be metabolised to hydromorphone. Though the capacity of
the  UDP-glucuronosyl transferase family for glucuronidation of the 3
and 6  positions of morphine must make the oxidation of the position
six alcohol a  much less favourable reaction as, as i mentioned
above, hydromorphone has  not been reported in metabolic studies of
morphine.

Andrew Wright

Andrew Wright
Senior Research Scientist
School of Pharmacy
The University of Queensland
Queensland 4072
Australia
ph:  61-7-33651381
fax: 61-7-33651688

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