EFFICIENT ASSAY FOR THE DETERMINATION OF ATENOLOL IN HUMAN PLASMA ANDURINE BY HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH FLUORESCENCE DETECTION

An efficient method for the determination of atenolol in human plasma and urine was developed and validated. alpha-Hydroxymetoprolol, a comp ound with a similar polarity to atenolol, was used as the internal sta ndard in the present high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis with fluorescence detection. The assay was validated for the concentra tion range of 2 to 5000 ng/ml in plasma and 1 to 20 mu g/ml in urine. For both plasma and urine, the lower limit of detection was 1 ng/ml. T he intra-day and inter-day variabilities for plasma samples at 40 and 900 ng/ml, and urine samples at 9.5 mu g/ml were < 3% (n = 5).