High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of β-adrenoceptor blocking agents in body fluids

Abstract

Several reports have been published reviewing high‐performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods for the determination of β‐adrenoceptor blocking agents (β‐blockers) in biological materials (Flouvat et al., 1981; Mehta, 1983; Marko and Šoltés, 1984; Ahnoff et al., 1985; Tkaczyková and Šafařík, 1987). Of these, the paper by Mehta (1983) briefly summarizes the interrelationship between physicochemical properties of β‐blockers with prechromatographic treatment of biological samples, as well as with the HPLC methods used for the determination of 12 β‐adrenoceptor blocking drugs. The work by Ahnoff et al. (1985) concerning the monitoring of cardiovascular drugs also deals with HPLC assays of 18 β‐blockers in plasma. The Appendix to this report presents the great majority of HPLC methods for determining 30 β‐blockers in various body fluids. HPLC methods providing resolution and determination of individual β‐blocker enantiomers have not been included since this topic is being covered by Walle and Walle (1989). The Appendix is just a guide to the methods reviewed for the HPLC determination of parent β‐blockers as well as some of their metabolites co‐assayed in various body fluids. It does not include details such as the internal standard, recovery, setting of the detector, limit of determination, etc., given in the individual methods listed. The isolation technique of the drug(s) from the given body fluid represents the main step in the sample work‐up procedure. Along with this information, only the type of the HPLC column packing and the detection principle used by each method's developers are given.