Antiarrhythmic mexiletine: A review on synthetic routes to racemic and homochiral mexiletine and its enantioseparation

Mexiletine is an oral class IB antiarrhythmic agent. Although it was primarily studied for the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias, it has been demonstrated to be useful also for the treatment of chronic painful diabetic neuropathy, neuropathic pain, skeletal muscle channelopathies, and recently amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This review presents a detailed report on the different synthetic routes to racemic and homochiral mexiletine developed in the last decades, as well as analytical studies regarding enantioseparation methods and enantiomeric excess determination. Finally, some analogues of mexiletine reported in the literature, most of which along with pharmacological studies, have been mentioned.