title: Determination of atropine and obidoxime in automatic injection devices used as antidotes against nerve agent intoxication.
abstract: A capillary gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) and an ion-pair high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method were developed for the assay of atropine sulphate and obidoxime chloride from a parenteral solution in commercial automatic injection devices. The injectors are aimed for the emergency treatment of poisoning by nerve agents. The two-step GLC method consists of extraction of atropine as a free base prior to GLC analysis using scopolamine as an internal standard. Obidoxime is determined directly in a diluted sample solution by reversed-phase HPLC using sodium 1-heptanesulphonate as a counter ion in the mobile phase. The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) was 1.81% for the GLC procedure with injectors containing only atropine and 2.37% for the GLC of atropine in atropine-obidoxime injectors. The R.S.D. for the HPLC procedure of obidoxime in atropine-obidoxime injectors was 0.82%. The corresponding R.S.D.s for the sampling of atropine-obidoxime injectors were 0.36% and 0.27%. The coefficient of determination (r2) was 1.000 for both methods. The recoveries at the target concentration averaged 101.0% and 98.7% with a standard error of the mean of 0.30 for both methods. The retention times for atropine and obidoxime were 6.27 and 4.29 min, respectively.
authors.affiliation: Military Pharmacy, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pohjola
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Harpf
mesh_terms: D001285:Atropine / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002618:Chemical Warfare; D002849:Chromatography, Gas / Q000379:methods*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009498:Neurotoxins / Q000506:poisoning; D009768:Obidoxime Chloride / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D011041:Poisoning / Q000188:drug therapy
chemical_list: D009498:Neurotoxins; D009768:Obidoxime Chloride; D001285:Atropine