Optimized liquid-chromatographic determination of metronidazole and its metabolites in plasma.

Metronidazole and its known metabolites in plasma can be rapidly separated by a "high-pressure" liquid-chromatographic method that can also be adapted for rapid determination of tinidazole. Samples deproteinized with trichloroacetic acid (50 g/L final concentration) undergo isocratic separation on a reversed-phase C18 column eluted with an 8/92 (by vol) mixture of acetonitrile/KH2PO4 (5 mmol/L, pH 3.0). The method is sensitive, reliably detecting as little as 25 micrograms of metronidazole and (or) its metabolites per milliliter of plasma. The detector response varied linearly with concentration for all compounds tested over a wide range (25-500 micrograms/L). Within-day and between-day variation was generally less than 2.5% for all concentrations of all compounds tested. Various other antibiotics tested did not interfere.