An improved method for measurement of common tricyclic antidepressant drugs and their metabolites using normal phase...

A sensitive HPLC method that allows the simultaneous determination of imipramine, amitriptyline and their desmethyl metabolites, using a 10 cm straight silica cartridge column with a mobile phase consisting of 0.004% perchloric acid in methanol is presented. Detection of the eluent is at 210 nm. The drugs are back-extracted from serum, giving both a good recovery and sensitivity of at least 5 micrograms/L. This method has proved to be extremely robust and reliable, with coefficients of variation around 3% being reported.