A high-performance liquid-chromatographic microanalytical procedure for the rapid estimation of piracetam in plasma or cerebrospinal fluid.

Presently available GC and HPLC methods for analysis of piracetam, require large samples and suffer from interference. A micro scale, isocratic high-performance liquid-chromatographic method is described for the determination of piracetam in plasma (25 microL) or cerebrospinal fluid (10 microL) using ultraviolet absorbance at 215 nm. The limit of quantitation is 4 micrograms mL-1 and the within-batch and between-batch coefficients of variation are less than 10%. No interference from other commonly prescribed antimyoclonic or antiepileptic drugs was observed and thus the method can be used to monitor piracetam in patients on polytherapy antimyoclonic or antiepileptic drug regimens. Because of the sensitivity and rapidity of the method it is suitable for pharmacokinetic and mechanistic studies and for analysis of paediatric samples.