A simple and simultaneous determination of acyclovir and ganciclovir in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A simple high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of the therapeutic levels of acyclovir and ganciclovir in human plasma. After precipitation of plasma proteins with 6% perchloric acid, acyclovir and ganciclovir were simultaneously determined by reversed-phase chromatography with spectophotometric detection at 254 nm. The peak heights for acyclovir and ganciclovir were linearly related to their concentrations ranging from 0.063 to 2.080 µg/mL. The recovery was 100.48–102.84% for acyclovir and 99.26–103.07% for ganciclovir. The intra- and inter-day relative standard deviation values were in the range 0.186–8.703% for acyclovir and 0.137–6.424% for ganciclovir. The detection limits for both compounds were 0.01 µg/mL determined as the signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The present method is applicable to therapeutic monitoring during antiviral medication. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]