Sensitive Determination of Nitroprusside in Blood by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A highly sensitive method for the determination of nitroprusside was developed by high performance liquid chromatography using an anion exchange column. In this method, nitroprusside was degraded to produce cyanide by heating in the presence of dithiothreitol, and the released cyanide was detected fluorometrically. A calibration curve for nitroprusside was linear in the range of 0.4 to 400 pmol. The usefulness and practicability of the present method were verified by application to the determination of nitroprusside in rat blood, which was infused to control the blood pressure.