title: Therapeutic drug monitoring of flecainide using high-performance liquid chromatography and comparison with fluorescence polarisation immunoassay.
abstract: The therapeutic monitoring of flecainide, like the other antiarrhythmic agents, has become an integral part of the administration of this type of drug. A full description is given here of a high-performance liquid chromatographic method which has been developed and used over the past three years for the routine monitoring of flecainide. This method uses extraction into toluene using the non-fluorinated analogue of flecainide as an internal standard and then direct back-extraction into a small volume of aqueous acid without the need for solvent evaporation. A fluorescence detection instrument is chosen which avoids the use of high-cost fluorometers. Ample sensitivity is accomplished with a simple fluorometer by selecting a combination of Schott bandpass filters with high-transmittance characteristics at appropriate wavelengths. A comparison is made between this method and the newly introduced fluorescence polarisation immunoassay. The comparison shows a good agreement between the independent technologies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Chemistry, Auckland Hospital, New Zealand.
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Woollard
mesh_terms: D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D005424:Flecainide / Q000097:blood*; D015200:Fluoroimmunoassay; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D012997:Solvents; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
chemical_list: D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D012997:Solvents; D005424:Flecainide