title: Analysis of terbutaline in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection using a micro-electrochemical flow cell.
abstract: A high-performance liquid chromatographic method is described for the determination of terbutaline in human plasma in the range 1-35 ng/ml. Detection was achieved using a carbon fibre micro-electrochemical detector and a column-switching system. The microelectrode cell has advantages over conventional glassy carbon electrode-based detection systems in that it is easy to prepare, flexible in its operation and suffers less trouble from problems such as air bubbles and leaks. Furthermore, it has a better detection limit for terbutaline (0.8 ng/ml) to that obtained using a conventional glassy carbon electrode flow detector (2 ng/ml). Sample clean-up was by on-line solid-phase extraction with column switching, providing a method which was sensitive and reproducible, where the mean overall coefficient of variation was 5.60% and drug recovery in excess of 86% at the concentration levels studied.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University, Ireland.
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Sagar
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Smyth
mesh_terms: D002138:Calibration; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D004563:Electrochemistry; D004566:Electrodes; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013726:Terbutaline / Q000097:blood* / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D013726:Terbutaline