The present review has concentrated on chromatographic techniques for the quantitative determination of antiviral drugs in biological samples. Special attention has been paid to the elements of chromatographic assays that are essential to ensure selectivity, sensitivity, accuracy and precision of the various methods. Wherever possible, attempts have been made to determine the suitability of the methods for application to investigations in pharmacokinetics in man and experimental animals, biopharmaceutics, therapeutic drug monitoring, metabolism and pharmacology. Because of the serious consequences of infection from material contaminated with viruses, special consideration has been given to the handling of contaminated samples. It was convenient to divide the antiviral drugs for the purpose of this review into two groups, the nucleoside and the non-nucleoside antiviral drugs. The nucleosides discussed are vidarabine, cytarabine, ribavirin, riboxamide, acyclovir, ganciclovir, desciclovir, carbovir, 2',3'-dideoxyadenosine, 2',3'-dideoxycytidine, zidovudine, 2',3'-dideoxyinosine, 2',3'-didehydro-3'-deoxythymidine, idoxuridine, 5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine, 2'-fluoro-5-iodoaracytidine and 5-iodo-2'-deoxycytidine. The non-nucleoside antiviral drugs discussed are arildone, amantidine, rimantidine, moroxydine, enviroxime, foscarnet and ampligen.