Determination of Clocapramine and Its Metabolites in Plasma by Automated Column-Switching High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

An automated column-switching high performance liquid chromatographic method with ultraviolet detection is described for rapid and sensitive determination of clocapramine, a psychotropic drug, and its two metabolites, clospipramine and dehydroclospipramine, in dog and human plasmas. The drug and the metabolites were extracted together with trifluperidol as an internal standard with a heptane-chloroform mixture from plasma. The extract was subjected to column-switching high performance liquid chromatography using a bovine serum albumin-coated cyanopropyl silica gel column, a newly developed sample clean-up column, and a reversed phase column (TSK gel ODS-80TM) for analytical separation.The detection limits (S/N=3) of clocapramine, clospipramine and dehydroclospipramine were 0.5-1.0ng ml^-1.