Fully automated on-line determination of olanzapine in serum for routine therapeutic drug monitoring

A method is presented for unattended fully automated extraction and on-line determination of the atypical antipsychotic drug olanzapine in serum. An ASPEC automatic sample-preparing apparatus with Isolute cyanopropyl-bonded silicagel cartridges was used for solid-phase extraction of the drugs from serum. The adsorbed drugs were eluted with methanol and an aliquot injected into a high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) apparatus. Trifluoperazine was used as internal standard, and the analytes were separated on an unmodified silicagel column using methanol-ammonium acetate buffer pH 9.9 (85:15) as mobile phase. Ultraviolet detection at 257 nm was used for quantitation. Within the therapeutic range for the serum concentration of olanzapine, the interday variations for the quantitative determinations were