Determination of corticosteroids in plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography after pre-column derivatization with 2-(4-carboxyphenyl)-5,6-dimethylbenzimidazole.

2-(4-Carboxyphenyl)-5,6-dimethylbenzimidazole (CDB) was used as a pre-column derivatization reagent for corticosteroids analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorimetric detection. Eight corticosteroids were derivatized with CDB to their esters in acetonitrile containing 4-piperidinopyridine and 1-isopropyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropryl)carbodiimide perchlorate. The resulting CDB esters were extracted with a Sep-Pak C18 cartridge and the esters were separated on a reversed-phase column (Zorbax ODS) with water-methanol (25:75, v/v) containing 5 mmol/l tetramethylammonium hydrogensulphate as the mobile phase. The limits of detection for steroids were 0.06-0.3 pg per 100 microliters of plasma (signal-to-noise = 3). The within-day relative standard deviations (n = 6) were 7.8-11.1%, and day-to-day relative standard deviations (n = 6) were 7.0-10.4%.