A fully automated high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the analysis of the radiographic contrast agent iopentol in human plasma and whole blood. This method is based on on-line sample preparation with dialysis followed by pre-column enrichment of the dialysate. The method was compared with a manual sample preparation method based on protein precipitation with tetrahydrofuran. The inter-assay and intra-assay variations and the limits of quantitation were the same for both methods. The on-line combination of dialysis and column-switching high-performance liquid chromatography was shown to be a reliable and time-saving technique for monitoring iopentol in human whole blood and plasma.