Liquid chromatography of antihistamines using post-column tris(2,2'-bipyridine) ruthenium(III) chemiluminescence detection.

The separation and detection of five antihistamine drugs commonly found within over-the-counter allergy and cold pharmaceutical products was performed by HPLC with chemiluminescence (CL) detection. Comparable detection limits at 5-10 pmol were found for the antihistamines by both UV at 214 nm and tris(2,2'-bipyridine) ruthenium(III) CL. However, urine samples were found not to generate as large an unretained peak by CL detection as compared to those peaks by UV detection at 214 and 254 nm. For example, the pheniramine peak representing 0.15 microgram/ml was almost totally obscured at 214 nm. Quantitative results received for three antihistamine commercial samples ranged from 4 to 8% error in accuracy when an internal standard was used to compensate for short term detector drift.