A reliable, highly reproducible, accurate and time-efficient high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method to measure atenolol concentration in human plasma was developed and validated. Sample clean-up consists of simple and efficient liquid-liquid extraction (mean recovery 103) which allows a high sample throughput. Chromatography on a CN-propyl column yields symmetrical and well resolved peaks for atenolol and for the internal standard (metoprolol) without any interference from endogenous plasma components. Using 1 ml plasma samples the method has a limit of detection of 12.6 ng/ml (calculated at a 99.9 confidence level) with CV (precision) #x2265; 8.8 and bias (accuracy) #x2265; 3.8 for concentrations in the range of 10 #x2013; 1000 ng/ml. We now routinely use this method in human pharmacokinetic studies of atenolol dosage forms.
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