Restricted-access media high pressure liquid chromatography vs fluorescence polarization immunoassay for analysis of carbamazepine in human plasma.

Aim: To compare restricted-access media high performance liquid chromatographic (RAM-HPLC) method with fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) for analysis of carbamazepine (CBZ) in human blood.

Methods: An RAM-HPLC method was established for the determination of CBZ in plasma.

Results: The two methods do not need sample clean-up prior to analysis and they have almost 100 % recovery and good reproducibility. There is a good correlation between the CBZ concentration in venous plasma samples determined by FPIA and that in both venous and fingertip plasma samples obtained by RAM-HPLC, the correlation coefficients being 0.989 and 0.995, respectively. It is shown by t-test that the data sets of venous and fingertip plasma samples given by RAM-HPLC are consistent with each other but significantly different from the results obtained by FPIA.

Conclusion: Both direct injection RAM-HPLC and FPIA may be applied in determining CBZ in therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). FPIA is well-suited to the routine TDM. RAM-HPLC is more useful in TDM related research and especial cases.