Application of Snyder-Dolan classification scheme to the selection of "orthogonal" columns for fast screening of illicit drugs and impurity profiling of pharmaceuticals--I. Isocratic elution.

Fourteen judiciously selected reversed phase columns were tested with 18 cationic drug solutes under the isocratic elution conditions advised in the Snyder-Dolan (S-D) hydrophobic subtraction method of column classification. The standard errors (S.E.) of the least squares regressions of logk' vs. logk'(REF) were obtained for a given column against a reference column and used to compare and classify columns based on their selectivity. The results are consistent with those obtained with a study of the 16 test solutes recommended by Snyder and Dolan. To the extent these drugs are representative, these results show that the S-D classification scheme is also generally applicable to pharmaceuticals under isocratic conditions. That is, those columns judged to be similar based on the 16 S-D solutes were similar based on the 18 drugs; furthermore those columns judged to have significantly different selectivities based on the 16 S-D probes appeared to be quite different for the drugs as well. Given that the S-D method has been used to classify more than 400 different types of reversed phases the extension to cationic drugs is a significant finding.