Simultaneous Determination of Tizanidine, Nimesulide, Aceclofenac and Paracetamol in Tablets and Biological Fluids Using Micellar Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A simple, sensitive and rapid micellar liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated for simultaneous determination of four drugs, namely, paracetamol (PAR), tizanidine (TZD), aceclofenac (ACF) and nimesulide (NMD). Good chromatographic separation was achieved using Cyano column and micellar mobile phase consisting of 120mM sodium dodecyl sulfate, 25mM phosphate buffer and 10% (V/V) butanol. The pH was adjusted to three using phosphoric acid. The total retention time was below 10 min. The analysis was performed at a flow rate of 1 mL/min and a column temperature of 40°C with direct UV detection at 230 nm. Diclofenac sodium was used as the internal standard. The proposed method was validated according to the ICH guidelines and was successfully applied to the analysis of these drugs in their tablet dosage forms with high accuracy. Limits of detection were found to be 0.03, 0.07, 0.033 and 0.11 μg/mL for PAR, ACF, TZD and NMD, respectively. The high sensitivity of developed method permitted its application to the in-vitro determination of the cited drugs in spiked human plasma and urine samples, and the obtained results were satisfactory. However, PAR could not be determined in spiked human urine because its peak overlapped with that of the urine peak.