Direct, simultaneous determination of propranolol and its 4-hydroxy metabolite by liquid chromatography.

Propranolol and its active 4-hydroxy metabolite are determined by direct injection of spiked plasma samples onto a protein-coated ODS liquid chromatographic column. The recovery of propranolol and the 4-hydroxy metabolite is essentially quantitative and the reproducibility is good. The reproducibility and simplicity may be superior to the conventional HPLC analyses which include pretreatment, i.e., solvent extraction or deproteinization.