A Rapid and Simple High Pressure Liquid Chromatographic Method for Pharmacokinetic Study of Ciprofloxacin in Human Serum

Abstract

A rapid, accurate and sensitive method has been developed for the quantitative determination of ciprofloxacin, a new second-generation quinolone carboxylic acid antimicrobial agent, with high in vitro activity against a wide range of Gram- negative pathogens and Gram-positive cocci.

A Lichrosorb RP-18 250 x 4.0 mm, 5 μm analytical column was used with an eluting system consisting of a mixture of CH₃CN-CH₃OH-Citric acid 0.4 M (1:3:6 v/v). Detection was performed with a variable wavelength UV-visible detector at 275 nm resulting in a limit of detection of 0.2 ng per 20 μl injection. For the quantitative determination theophylline was used as chromatographic internal standard at a concentration of 1.56 ng/μl. A rectilinear relationship was observed up to 20 ng/μl. Analysis time was less than 6 min. The statistical evaluation of the method was examined performing intra-day (n=8) and inter-day calibration (n=8) and was found to be satisfactory with highly accurate and precise results. The method was applied to the direct determination of ciprofloxacin in human blood serum. Sample pretreatment involved only protein precipitation with acetonitrile. Recovery of ciprofloxacin in spiked samples was 98 ± 4% over the range of 0.5–5 mg/μl.

Key Words:

• Ciprofloxacin
• pharmacokinetic study
• serum
• HPLC