Stereoselective determination of verapamil and norverapamil by capillary electrophoresis

An analytical method has been developed to determine simultaneously the verapamil and norverapamil enantiomers in human plasma using capillary electrophoresis. Among the cyclodextrins tested as chiral selector, only trimethyl-beta-cyclodextrin was suitable to resolve the four enantiomers. The analysis was achieved in less than 10 min. Selectivity, linearity, precision and accuracy were evaluated before the chiral method was successfully implemented for routine use to simultaneously determine the four enantiomers in several thousands of human plasma samples. The robustness of the capillary electrophoretic method and its suitability were demonstrated by the coefficients of variation which were lower than 11%, even at the limit of quantification (2.5 ng/ml), for the analysis of more than one hundred quality control samples.