High-performance liquid chromatographic assay for imipramine, desipramine, and their 2-hydroxylated metabolites

High-performance liquid chromatographic method is presented for the simultaneous determination of imipramine, desipramine, and their 2-hydroxylated metabolites in plasma. The method involves a simple plasma extraction at basic pH with organic solvent, chromatography on a silica gel column, and fluorescence detection. Correlation with a GLC-mass spectrometric method for imipramine and desipramine is illustrated. The method can detect 1 ng of each component/ml of plasma, sufficient sensitivity for pharmocokinetic studies.