A novel non-stabilised aqueous suspension polymerisation methodology for the preparation of spherical molecularly imprinted polymers is described with chlorpheniramine (CP), d-chlorpheniramine (d-CP), brompheniramine (BP) and d-brompheniramine (d-BP) as the templates, respectively. Using this rapid and simple technique, controlled polymer beads in the low micron range with narrow size distributions were generated by photo-polymerisation. The use of agitation speed as a method of controlling bead size distribution was demonstrated. Enantioselective properties of the imprinted beads were examined and the polymers prepared using d-chlorpheniramine and d-brompheniramine were capable of discriminating between the enantiomers of the template. Cross-selectivity studies were performed by batch rebinding with the influence of template size and functional group orientation of analytes on the recognition properties of the imprinted polymers investigated. Physical characteristics of all polymers were studied by nitrogen sorption porosimetry, particle size analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to gain an insight into the role of such properties on retention behaviour.

The separation of fourteen active ingredients used in a cold medicine was investigated by micellar electrokinetic chromatography (EKC) employing bile salts. Basic drugs were also successfully separated by micellar EKC using bile salts with high theoretical plate numbers (2.0 x 10(5)-3.5 x 10(5)) within a relatively short time (ca. 20 min). The separation of these solutes by micellar EKC was not successful using sodium dodecyl sulphate. The effects of micellar concentration, pH and organic modifier content on migration times and selectivity were investigated. This technique was also applied to the determination of several active ingredients combined in commercial preparations by an internal standard method.

A method was developed for the rapid quantitative analysis of chlorpheniramine in plasma, saliva and urine using high-performance liquid chromatography. A diethyl ether or hexane extract of the alkalinized biological samples was extracted with dilute acid which was chromatographed on a reversed-phase column using mixtures of acetonitrile and ammonium phosphate buffer as the mobile phase. Ultraviolet absorption at 254 nm was monitored for the detection and brompheniramine was employed as the internal standard for the quantitation. The effects of buffer, pH, and acetonitrile concentration in the mobile phase on the chromatographic separation were investigated. A mobile phase 20% acetonitrile in 0.0075 M phosphate buffer at a flow-rate of 2 ml/min was used for the assays of plasma and saliva samples. A similar mobile phase was used for urine samples. The drug and internal standard were eluted at retention volumes of less than 17 ml. The method can also be used to quantify two metabolites, didesmethyl- and desmethylchlorpheniramine, in the urine. The method can accurately measure chlorpheniramine levels down to 2 ng/ml in plasma or saliva using 1 ml of sample, and should be adequate for biopharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic studies. Various precautions for using the assay are discussed.

A uniformly sized molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for d-chlorpheniramine has been prepared by a multi-step swelling and polymerization method using methacrylic acid and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as a functional monomer and cross-linker, respectively. The retentive and enantioselective properties of chlorpheniramine and its structurally related compounds on the MIP were evaluated using an aqueous mobile phase. Electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions could mainly work for the retention and enantioseparation of chlorpheniramine in aqueous mobile phase. Further, the MIP showed the highest recognition for chlorpheniramine and slight recognition for its structurally related compounds, and enantioseparation of pheniramine was attained.

This paper describes the testing of a saturated factorial design using a full factorial design. Saturated factorial designs are often used to test the robustness of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods, however they are based on several assumptions. A full factorial design relies on fewer assumptions and hence could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the saturated design. Both designs were used to test a gradient HPLC method for the assay of codeine phosphate, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride and chlorpheniramine maleate. Six HPLC conditions, including wavelength, mobile phase pH and ion pairing reagent concentration were tested using the saturated design. Three of these factors were selected for full evaluation using a full factorial design. The results showed that the main effects calculated by each design were comparable. However, the saturated design showed higher standard errors, probably due to the effects of changing several more factors. One interaction effect was indicated as a confounding effect by the saturated design and this was confirmed by the calculation of the same interaction effect using the full design. Overall the method was shown to be robust under the variety of HPLC conditions tested.

An easy, rapid and simple nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis (NACE) method was developed for the identification and determination of four basic nitrogenous compounds, i.e. pseudoephedrine (PE), dextromethorphan (DXM), diphenhydramine (DHM) and chlorpheniramine (CLP). The most suitable running buffer was composed of 40 mM ammonium acetate, 10% acetonitrile (ACN) in methanol with a fused-silica capillary column (47 cm x 75 microm i.d.), 25 kV applied voltage and 25 degrees C capillary temperature. The calibration curves revealed linear relationships between the peak area for each analyte and its concentration (correlation coefficients: 0.9993 for PE, 0.9971 for DXM, 0.9991 for DHM, and 0.9995 for CLP, respectively). The relative standard deviations of the migration time and peak area of the four compounds were 0.37, 3.90, 0.73 and 0.68, and 2.80, 3.50, 1.60 and 3.70%, respectively. The method was successfully applied to determine the four compounds in five cold medicines, the recoveries of the four constituents ranging between 91 and 109%.

The simultaneous determination of the active ingredients in multicomponent pharmaceutical products normally requires the use of a separation technique, such as HPLC or GC, followed by quantitation. Presented here is a rapid, validated, analytical method that does not require prior separation for the simultaneous determination of three drugs, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, chlorpheniramine maleate, and dextromethorphan hydrobromide, in a tablet formulation. A diode array spectrophotometer, capable of multicomponent analysis, was used for the quantitation. The utility of this method was demonstrated in two ways: the analysis of a chewable pediatric tablet (formulation CP) containing 7.5 mg of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, 0.5 mg of chlorpheniramine maleate, and 2.5 mg of dextromethorphan hydrobromide, and the dissolution analysis of a hydroxypropyl methylcellulose-based sustained-release tablet (formulation SR) containing 120 mg of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, 8 mg of chlorpheniramine maleate, and 60 mg of dextromethorphan hydrobromide. The sensitivity of this assay is 7.5 micrograms/mL for pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, 1.0 micrograms/mL for chlorpheniramine maleate, and 5.0 micrograms/mL for dextromethorphan hydrobromide, using the second-derivative spectra of the absorbance with respect to wavelength. Determinations were made in 0.1 M sodium acetate buffer at pH 5.0 using a 1-cm quartz cell. Absorbance spectra, and their first and second derivatives, from 240 to 300 nm were used for the determination. The results obtained by this method compared favorably with the results obtained by a validated HPLC method.

The Philadelphia Medical Examiners Office has reported a series of 15 deaths between February 1999 and June 2005 of infants and toddlers 16 months and younger in which drugs commonly found in over-the-counter (OTC) cold medications were present. A total of 10 different drugs were detected: pseudoephedrine, dextromethorphan, acetaminophen, brompheniramine, carbinoxamine, chlorpheniramine, ethanol, doxylamine and the anticonvulsants, phenobarbital, and phenytoin. The drugs were confirmed and quantified by gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry, with the exception of ethanol, which was analyzed by headspace GC and of phenobarbital and phenytoin that were quantified by GC with a nitrogen phosphorus detector. The most predominant drug was pseudoephedrine, which was found in all of the cases (blood concentration, n=14, range=0.10-17.0 mg/L, mean=3.34 mg/L) and was the sole drug detected in three cases. Acetaminophen was detected in blood from each of the five cases with sufficient sample. Other drugs (with frequency of detection) were dextromethorphan (five cases), carbinoxamine (four cases), chlorpheniramine (two cases) and brompheniramine, doxylamine, and ethanol (one case each). In the majority of the cases, toxicity from drugs found in easily available OTC medications was listed either as the direct cause of death or as a contributory factor. The manner of death was determined to be natural in only two of the cases. This postmortem study supports previous evidence that the administration of OTC cold medications to infants may, under some circumstances, be an unsafe practice and in some cases may even be fatal. The treating physicians and the general public need to be made more aware of the dangers of using OTC cold medications to treat very young children so that these types of tragedies might be avoided.

A capillary zone electrophoresis method has been developed for the detection of 0.1% of (R)-levochlorpheniramine maleate in samples of (S)-dexchlorpheniramine maleate. Using 1.5 mM carboxymethyl-beta-cyclodextrin in an acidic background electrolyte, resolution values of more than 10 were obtained. Under these conditions the R-enantiomer is migrating in front of the bulk S-enantiomer. The assay was validated for linearity (2-10 microg/ml; R2 = 0.9992), selectivity [(RS)-pheniramine maleate and (RS)-brompheniramine maleate], limit of detection (0.25 microg/ml), limit of quantification (0.75 microg/ml), analytical precision (intra- and inter-day variability), repeatability of the method (RSD = 5.0%) and accuracy. In samples of dexchlorpheniramine maleate from two different manufacturers, concentrations of, respectively, 0.15% and 1.95%(m/m) of levochlorpheniramine maleate were detected. The method was compared to the HPLC method described in the European Pharmacopoeia III monograph.

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.