High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay for ribavirin and comparison of the HPLC assay with radioimmunoassay.

The use of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to measure ribavirin in serum and other biological fluids has been limited by endogenous interfering substances. We report an HPLC procedure based on the extraction of ribavirin from serum, plasma, or cerebrospinal fluid with a boronate affinity gel, which uses a 3-methylcytidine internal standard. This assay is sensitive (to 0.4 microM), specific (no interference with 34 commonly prescribed drugs), reproducible (coefficients of variation from 5.4 to 22.4%), and linear (r = 0.999) over the range of clinically relevant concentrations in serum (from 0.5 to 50.0 microM). It also correlates well with the ribavirin radioimmunoassay (r = 0.992). This HPLC assay should be useful for measuring ribavirin in serum and other body fluids during clinical trials.