A validated high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of atenolol in whole blood

A validated reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) procedure employing fluorescence detection for the analysis of atenolol (Tenormin) in human whole blood is reported. The method is rapid and coupled with standard HPLC procedures leads to a sensitive, accurate and reproducible assay. The retention times of atenolol and internal standard, bamethan, are 4.4 and 6.3 min, respectively. The peak height ratio versus plasma concentration is linear over the range of 20.0-800 ng ml-1, with a detection limit below 10 ng ml-1. The mean absolute recovery of atenolol using the described assay is 90%. The inter- and intra-day accuracy and precision are within 8% of the actual values for all concentrations investigated. Furthermore, this procedure was applied to the analysis of whole blood samples from healthy subjects receiving a single 100 mg oral dose of Tenormin.