Separation of propafenone enantiomers by liquid chromatography with a chiral counter ion

Abstract Propafenone is a class Ic antiarrhythmic drug with complex pharmacological and pharmacokinetic profiles due to the existence of an asymmetric carbon that is only available as a racemic mixture. A liquid chromatographic method for the determination of propafenone enantiomers using N-benzyloxycarbonylglycyl- l -proline as the chiral selector in the mobile phase is described. Studies on the retention behaviour of both propafenone and propranolol (internal standard) enantiomers with different mobile phase compositions permitted the determination of the optimum conditions. The best resolution for propafenone enantiomers was 2.3. Application to plasma samples with a simple sample preparation is also presented. The method was linear up to 2500 ng/ml of racemic propafenone and the limit of detection was 100 ng/ml for each enantiomer.