Cardiotonic agents: A simple HPLC procedure for the quantitation of dobutamine and a new congener in plasma

A simple high performance-liquid chromatographic procedure employing electrochemical detection (LC-EC) has been developed for the quantitation of the cardiotonic agent dobutamine and a new pharmacologically active congener. The drugs were extracted from plasma by adsorption on to alumina, eluted from the adsorbent with dilute perchloric acid and the eluate subjected to LC-EC. The method had a limit of sensitivity of 1 ng/ml of plasma for each drug. The applicability of the LC-EC procedure was demonstrated by determining steady-state plasma concentration profiles of dobutamine and its congener in man and dog, respectively, following i.v. infusion of the drugs.