ABSTRACT
The antiarrhythmic agents procainamide, N-acetylprocainamide (NAPA), lidocaine, quinidine, disopyramide, and propranolol are important in the treatment of a variety of cardiac disorders. For most drugs the relation between dosage and intensity of the pharmacological effect is unpredictable. An interpatient variation in the dose-effect relationship may arise largely from genetically determined individual differences in drug absorption, distribution, biotransformation, and excretion. A number of antiarrhythmic drugs are transformed into bioactive metabolites. The diversity of antiarrhythmic drugs poses special problems for the simultaneous liquid chromatography (LC) analysis of these agents: different columns are sometimes necessary; relatively large amounts of sample are required; and different procedures are used for each individual drug. Sample preparation techniques using a liquid-solid extraction principle have been introduced prior to LC methods. Virtually all LC methods for the analysis of antiarrhythmic drugs employ UV or fluorescence detection to monitor the column effluent.
