Quantitation of the antimalarial agent, mefloquine, in blood, plasma, and urine using high-pressure liquid chromatography.

Sensitive and specific assays are described for the quantitation of mefloquine in whole blood, plasma, and urine specimens using high-pressure liquid chromatography. Specimens were extracted with ethyl acetate and concentrated before chromatography. Whole blood and plasma extracts were chromatographed on a polar bonded phase partitioning column, and urine extracts were chromatographed on a bonded reversed-phase partitioning column. The sensitivity of the assays for mefloquine was 0.05 microgram/ml of whole blood or plasma and 0.25 microgram/ml of urine using 5-ml samples. The assays are suitable for studying mefloquine pharmacokinetics in humans.