Highly sensitive determination of chlorpheniramine as fluorescence derivative by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A new method has been developed for the quantitative analysis of chlorpheniramine in human blood using high-performance liquid chromatography with a fluorescence detector. Benzyl chloroformate was found to be suitable as a fluorometric derivatizing reagent. A linear calibration curve ranging from 0 to 40 ng was obtained for chlorpheniramine, and the minimum detectable concentration was 0.1 ng/ml (whole blood) at a signal-to-noise ratio of 2. It was confirmed that chlorpheniramine levels in the blood of healthy adult volunteers could be precisely determined up to 96 h after a single oral administration of a tablet containing 4 mg of chlorpheniramine.