Monitoring of S- and R-tocainide in human plasma after heptafluorobutyrylation, separation on Chirasil-Val and electron-capture detection.

The conditions for the heptafluorobutyrylation of tocainide have been studied. An almost instantaneous reaction was obtained with 0.01% of heptafluorobutyric anhydride in toluene at 40 degrees C. Higher anhydride concentration caused degradation of the initially formed derivative, mainly by the loss of water, as shown by mass spectral analysis. Tocainide was isolated from plasma by extraction into dichloromethane at alkaline pH. Gas chromatographic separation was performed with a fused-silica capillary column coated with a methyl silicone gum. The enantiomers were separated on a glass capillary column coated with Chirasil-Val. Upon analysing 0.1 ml of plasma eight times the precision was 4.7% at the 10 mumol/1 level for the S-form of tocainide.