Therapeutic drug monitoring of tacrine: Simple and fast high-performance liquid chromatography assay method for its determination in human plasma

A new high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay method was develo ped for the therapeutic monitoring of tacrine. The method involved a simple protein precipitation by means of either acetonitrile or cold methanol fol lowed by a fast isocratic separation on a CN column eluted in reversed-phas e mode. The entire sample preparation took place in an HPLC vial and no fur ther liquid transfer was required. The validation data showed that the assa y method was precise, accurate, and robust. Analysis of more than 1,000 pla sma samples collected from patients with Alzheimer disease demonstrates the suitability of the assay.