Agarotetrol as an index for evaluating agarwood in crude drug products.

Agarotetrol in agarwood has been detected in water extracts or decoctions from medical use agarwood but the detection of agarotetrol has not been reported from other crude drugs. Agarwood generates the sedative benzylacetone upon heating. In this study, crude drug products containing many kinds of crude drugs in addition to agarwood were analyzed. Agarotetrol was detected and quantified, demonstrating that agarotetrol is useful for the quality evaluation of agarwood in complex prescriptions. High-performance liquid chromatography conditions to clearly separate agarotetrol from crude drug products were established and agarotetrol from Kampo decoctions was detected and quantified. Agarotetrol was also detected even from small crude drug product samples. These results suggest that agarotetrol is a useful component for the quality evaluation of agarwood in crude drug products.