High-performance liquid chromatographic method for the quantitation of quinidine and selected quinidine metabolites

A specific and sensitive assay for the separation and quantitation of quinidine, 3-hydroxyquinidine, quinidine-N-oxide, O-desmethylquinidine and dihydroquinidine is presented. The assay is shown to be sensitive to concentrations of 0.1 microgram/ml for all the above compounds when using a serum sample of 0.1 ml. The standard curve demonstrates linearity at concentrations from 0.1 to 5 micrograms/ml. The extraction procedure consists of adjusting the serum to an alkaline pH and extracting once with a mixture of methanol-dichloromethane (15:85). The organic extract is dried and the residue is solubilized in mobile phase. The chromatographic conditions are an isocratic delivery of the mobile phase 0.01 M K2HPO4-acetonitrile (96:4) through a C18 column at ambient temperature. Detection of the compounds of interest is by ultraviolet absorption at a wavelength of 210 nm. For each compound the inter-assay variation is less than 10% and the intra-assay variation is less than 15%. No interfering compounds were detected when a commercially prepared serum spiked with 28 commonly used therapeutic compounds was assayed by this method. The analytical method presented here for the isolation and quantitation of quinidine, several active metabolites, and dihydroquinidine has adequate sensitivity and specificity for monitoring the concentration of quinidine and quinidine metabolites in patient samples.