Determination of cianopramine in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography and gas-liquid chromatography with ultraviolet, fluorescence and electron-capture detection.

New high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) and gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) methods for the measurement of the antidepressant cianopramine in human plasma are compared for precision, accuracy, selectivity, sensitivity and convenience. Important differences were found with regard to precision, selectivity and sensitivity when ultraviolet, fluorescence and electron-capture detection were used. The mean coefficients of variation for intra-assay variability of cianopramine were 1.0% (HPLC-UV), 1.5% (HPLC-fluorescence) and 5.3% (GLC) over the concentration range studied. The results obtained support the selection of HPLC as the method of choice for the analysis of cianopramine in plasma, based mainly on its merits of sensitivity and convenience, despite the enhanced selectivity of the GLC method.