Mexiletine determination in serum by capillary gas chromatography with nitrogen-selective detection

Pharmacokinetic study of three cardiovascular drugs by high-performance liquid chromatography using pre-column derivatization with 9,10-anthraquinone-2-sulfonyl chloride

A new method was developed to analyze three cardiovascular drugs in rat plasma, Mexiletine hydrochloride (MXL), Methoxamine hydrochloride (MTX), and Metaraminol bitartrate (MTR), by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using 9,10-anthraquinone-2-sulfonyl chloride (ASC) as the derivatization reagent. The derivatization modes and conditions for this method were optimized. The quantitative analysis was achieved using a C18 column at room temperature (25 degrees C), with various volume ratios of methanol-water as the mobile phase and a detection wavelength at 256 nm. Analytical linearity was obtained for the method over the concentration range of 0.04-8.0 microg mL(-1) for all the three drugs. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was 0.04 microg mL(-1). This method was successfully applied to the analysis of the three drugs in rat plasma and their pharmacokinetic studies. The t1/2 values of the three drugs in rats were found to be 5.38+/-0.61, 4.49+/-0.53, and 3.70+/-0.19 h for MXL, MTX, and MTR, respectively.

Determination of plasma mexiletine levels with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and selected-ion monitoring

Mexiletine, 1-(2,6-dimethylphenoxy)-2-aminopropane (Mexitil), is an orally effective agent useful in the treatment of serious ventricular arrhythmias. This paper describes a gas chromatographic-mass spectrophotometric assay with selected-ion monitoring for the measurement of plasma or serum mexiletine levels. The drug and internal standard (p-chlorophenylalanine methyl ester) were extracted from plasma into ethyl acetate-hexane-methanol (60:40:1, v/v). After separation and evaporation of the organic phase, the drug and internal standard were derivatized to their pentafluoropropyl derivatives prior to analysis. The reproducibility of the daily standard curve yielded mean inter- and intra-day coefficients of variability from 0.7 to 11.0%. The coefficients of variability for control plasma samples (0.5 and 1.0 micrograms/ml) ranged from 2.6 to 5.0% and the accuracy of the assay was 106 +/- 6 and 100 +/- 5% for the low and high level controls respectively. The limit of quantitation for the assay was 0.1 micrograms/ml. No interfering peaks were detected in any patient samples. This method can be used as a primary analytical method to measure mexiletine plasma levels or can serve as a convenient back-up method to HPLC procedures when contaminating peaks coelute with mexiletine.

High-performance liquid chromatographic method for resolving the enantiomers of mexiletine and two major metabolites isolated from microbial fermentation media

(+/-)-Mexiletine is a class Ib antiarrhythmic drug useful in the treatment of premature ventricular contractions. It is predominantly metabolized by the liver with less than 15% being excreted in urine as unchanged drug. p-Hydroxymexiletine (PHM) and hydroxymethylmexiletine (HMM) are the two major mammalian metabolites. The purpose of our study was to develop a stereospecific high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method to determine whether the fungus, Cunninghamella echinulata (UAMH 4145), was able to biosynthesize these same two metabolites from the substrate (+/-)-mexiletine. Furthermore, it was desirable to ascertain whether metabolism of mexiletine was stereoselective. The method requires pre-column derivatization of the drug and metabolites with S-(+)-1-(1-naphthyl)ethyl isocyanate (NEIC) followed by normal-phase HPLC. Mexiletine, PHM, HMM and (+/-)-1-(4-hydroxyphenoxy)-3-isopropylaminopropan-2-ol (internal standard) were extracted from microbial broth using two volumes of diethyl ether after basifying with sodium carbonate. The combined ether extracts were evaporated to dryness, using a gentle stream of nitrogen, and reconstituted in 0.3 ml of chloroform to which was added 0.075 ml of NEIC (0.1%, v/v, in chloroform). This solution was immediately evaporated to dryness under a nitrogen stream. The residue was reconstituted with 0.220 ml of chloroform and 0.030 ml of n-butylamine (0.33%, v/v, in chloroform) and injected into the HPLC system.