A Selective LC Method for the Determination of Reboxetine in Human Plasma with Fluorescence Detection

A rapid, simple, accurate, sensitive and reproducible high performance liquid chromatographic method for the quantitation of reboxetine (REB) in human plasma using fluvoxamine as an internal standard (IS) has been developed and validated. The method is based on derivatization with 7-chloro-4-nitrobenzofurazan (NBD-Cl). The NBD-derivatives in plasma were extracted by liquid–liquid extraction and chromatographed on a reversed phase C₁₈ column with isocratic elution using acetonitrile and aqueous nitric acid (pH 3) solution. Calibration curve was linear over the range 2.0–200.0 ng mL⁻¹ with inter- and intra-assay precision (RSD%) of less than 4%. The mean recovery was about 94% for REB. The applicability of the method to the plasma was also studied.