Determination of artemether in plasma and whole blood using HPLC with flow-through polarographic detection

An HPLC method with polarographic detection for the trace determination of artemether in plasma and whole blood was developed and applied to pharmacokinetic and clinical pharmacological studies. The method showed high sensitivity and selectivity because of the easy reduction of the peroxide linkage of artemether at the mercury drop electrode. The detection limit was 10 ng and the detector response was linear over the range of 10 ng to 1 microgram artemether injected onto the column. The largest relative standard deviation of 10 replicate measurements of standard solutions (concentrations of 10 ng/mL-1 microgram/mL) was 8%. The recovery from whole blood and plasma of added drug (concentrations of 15-480 ng/mL) was 71-100%.