Fluoroimmunoassays for procainamide and N-acetylprocainamide compared with a liquid-chromatographic method.

We measured procainamide and its active metabolite, N-acetylprocainamide (NAPA), in 80 sera from 37 patients by a new fluorimmunoassay procedure and an established "high-performance" liquid-chromatographic method. Additive and proportional differences between the methods were 0.07 mg/L and 9%, respectively, for procainamide and 0.62 mg/L and 16% for NAPA. Between-day CVs by the chromatographic and immunoassay methods, respectively, were 3.9% and 2.2% for procainamide at a concentration of 6 mg/L, and 5.1% and 1.2% for NAPA (14 mg/L). We applied a modification of the fluoroimmunoassay for determination of procainamide concentrations, using sera obtained during a pharmacokinetic study, and demonstrated excellent agreement with the chromatographic method.