A Liquid Chromatographic Method for the Determination of Atenolol in Human Plasma

Abstract

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) ≥ 8.8% and bias (accuracy) ≥ 3.8% for concentrations in the range of 10 – 1000 ng/ml. We now routinely use this method in human pharmacokinetic studies of atenolol dosage forms.