Bioanalytical method development and validation for the determination of levocetirizine in pharmaceutical dosage form and human plasma by RP-HPLC

Abstract

This study describes the development of a rapid, selective, precise and sensitive reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for the quantitative determination of Levocetirizine Dihydrochloride (LCD) in human plasma and pharmaceutical dosage form. Extraction of drug from plasma was done by employing optimized liquid-liquid extraction procedure. The sample was analyzed using Acetonitrile: Methanol: 20mM Ammonium Acetate Buffer pH-5 (25: 55: 20 % v/v/v) as mobile phase. Chromatographic separation was achieved on Prontosil C-18 column (4.6 x 250mm, 5μ. particle size) as stationary phase using isocratic elution (at a flow rate of 1 mL/min). The peak was detected using UV -PDA detector set at 232 nm and retention time was found to be 8 min for LCD. The calibration curve obtained was linear (r2= 0.9998) over the concentration range of 2-10 μg/mL. Method was validated for precision, robustness and recovery. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) was 0.0057 and 0.174 μg/mL respectively. There was no significant difference between the amount of drug spiked in plasma and the amount recovered and plasma did not interfere in estimation. Thus, the proposed method is suitable for the analysis of LCD in tablet dosage forms and human plasma.