title: Chiral cardiovascular drugs: an overview.
abstract: Stereochemistry in drug molecules is rapidly becoming an important aspect in drug research, design, and development. Recently, individual stereoisomers of drug molecules with asymmetric centers such as fexofenadine, cetirizine, verapamil, fluoxetine, levalbutarol, and amphetamine, for example, have been separated and developed as individual drugs. These stereoisomers have different therapeutic activity, and each isomer has contributed differently with respect to its formulation's pharmacologic activity, side effects, and toxicity. The present overview discusses chirality among a select group of cardiovascular drugs, their stereochemical synthesis/preparation, isolation techniques using chiral chromatography, methods for confirmation of their enantiomeric purity, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacokinetics. Chirality has been visualized as an important factor in cardiovascular research. It is also becoming evident in other areas of therapeutics.
authors.affiliation: American Institute of Therapeutics, Lake Bluff, Illinois, USA. APIpharma@msn.com
authors.forename: Vasant V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Ranade
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Somberg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019540:Area Under Curve; D002317:Cardiovascular Agents / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics* / Q000494:pharmacology; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D004594:Electrophysiology; D006207:Half-Life; D006801:Humans; D013237:Stereoisomerism; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
chemical_list: D002317:Cardiovascular Agents