Development of an HPLC method for the determination of ranitidine and cimetidine in human plasma following SPE

A selective, sensitive and accurate high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed, validated and applied for the determination of ranitidine and cimetidine in plasma samples. The effects of mobile phase composition, buffer concentration, mobile phase pH and concentration of organic modifiers on retention of investigated drugs were investigated. Sample preparation was carried out by adding an internal standard, famotidine, and the clean-up procedure was accomplished using solid-phase extraction (SPE). This method uses ultraviolet detection, the separation used a Lichrocart Lichrospher 60 RP-select B column and the mobile phase consisted of 0.2% triethylamine (TEA), 0.04 mol l(-1) KH2PO4 at pH 6.8 and 14% acetonitrile. The recovery, selectivity, linearity, precision and accuracy of the method were evaluated from spiked human plasma. The method has been implemented to monitor ranitidine levels in clinical samples.