Simultaneous determination of ampicillin, cefoperazone, and sulbactam in pharmaceutical formulations by HPLC with β-cyclodextrin stationary phase

Development of green micellar HPLC-DAD method for simultaneous determination of some sulbactam combinations used in COVID-19 regimen

In a new attempt to separate some sulbactam combinations by green chemical method we came up with this research in which an ecofriendly, green, sustainable and selective method was established for separation of four antibiotics, namely, cefoperazone (CFP), cefixime (CFX), ampicillin (AMP) and sulbactam (SLB). No organic solvents were used in the composition of the mobile phase as it was replaced by mixing two surfactants together, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and polyoxyethylene-23-lauryl ether (Brij-35). Effect of varying the concentrations of the two surfactants on chromatographic separation was studied. Optimum separation was maintained using a mobile phase consisting of 0.01 mol/L SDS, 0.03 mol/L Brij-35, 0.4% Tri-ethylamine (TEA) and pH of 2.8 adjusted by using 1 M ortho-phosphoric acid on reversed phase Isère C18 BDS column with temperature of 40 °C at flow rate 1 mL/min, wavelength 215 nm, and the total run time was 6 min. Validation of the proposed method has been made according International Conference of Harmonization (ICH) guidelines at linearity range of 10-200 µg mL-1 for all drugs under study, high accuracy results (recovery range 98.39-100.35%). and the variation coefficient (RSD) of the points on the calibration curve was ranged from (0.1-1.7%) indicating precise method. The LOQ was (6.09 μg mL-1) for CFP, (6.07 μg mL-1) for CFX, (3.85 μg mL-1) for AMP and (7.20 μg mL-1) for SLB. Successful applications were made on marketed dosage forms with recovery range of (100.16-102.25%) and RSD of (0.03-1.88%). The method was verified on the Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI) and Analytical Greenness metric approach (AGREE) and it was found to be an excellent green alternative method.

Cefoperazone rapidly and sensitive quantitative assessment via a validated RP-HPLC method for different dosage forms, in-use stability, and antimicrobial activities

Cefoperazone (Cfz) is a member of the third generation of parenteral cephalosporin antibiotics. It is used on a wide scale in prescribed antibiotic drugs as anti-infection, especially for Gram-negative and also against Gram-positive microorganisms. The current study aimed to find a rapid RP-HPLC method of Cfz analysis with high linearity, repeatability, sensitivity, selectivity, and inexpensive. In our developed method, there is no need to use special chemical reagents, a high percentage of organic solvent, a high flow rate, further guard column. The chromatographic system comprises an ODS column (150 mm × 4.6 mm × 5 μm). The mobile phase was prepared by mixing KH₂PO₄ solution: acetonitrile (80:20) with a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min at detection wavelength 230 nm, at room temperature using injection volume 20 μL. The method manifested a satisfied linearity regression R² (0.9993) with a good repeatability range (0.34-0.92%) with LOD and LOQ; 4.04 μg/mL and 12.24 μg/mL respectively. The method proved its efficiency via system suitability achievement in the robustness and ruggedness conduction according to the validation guidelines. The shorter analysis time makes the method very valuable in quality control to quantify the commercial Cfz in pharmaceutical preparations. This improved HPLC method has been successfully applied for Cfz analysis for Peracef and Peractam vials in our routine finished and stability studies testing laboratories. Additionally, the detection limit of Cfz has been tested in our quality control lab to detect the smallest amount of traces that may be present after the cleaning process of the production machines for cephalosporins preparations. In a precedent for the first time, we were able to use the current analysis method to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bacteriostatic concentration (MBC). The conventional broth micro-dilution tube method was used to determine MIC at 250 µg/mL and MBC at 125 µg/mL of Cfz against the standard strain of Burkholderia cepacia (B. cepacia) ATCC 25416 as Gram-negative bacteria in vitro.

A green approach to the analysis of co-administered ampicillin/sulbactam and paracetamol in human urine

The novelty of this work is the simultaneous analysis of sulbactam (SUL), ampicillin (AMP), and paracetamol (PARA) in human urine samples, using the environmentally benign RP-HPLC method. A C18 column was used in chromatographic separation using potassium dihydrogen phosphate (10 mmol L^-1, pH 5)/ethanol (90 %, V/V) as the mobile phase; flow rate was 1.00 mL min^-1. UV detection at 220 nm was used for quantification. The proposed method showed good linearity in the concentration ranges of 2.20-250.00 μg mL^-1 for SUL, 2.50-250.00 μg mL^-1 for PARA, and 14.50-250.00 μg mL^-1 for AMP. Direct injection of urine samples with no prior extraction was performed. This method was found successful in moving towards greener studies of drugs' urinary excretion, by decreasing hazardous solvent consumption and waste. Moreover, the method was applied to investigate the urinary excretion of the drugs and possible interaction between ampicillin and paracetamol.

Development and Validation of Stability Indicating HPLC Method for the Determination of Impurities in the Sterile Mixture of Cefoperazone and Sulbactam

Background:

Cefoperazone Sulbactam injection is a cephalosporin antibiotic with a β- lactamase inhibitor used in the treatment for intra abdominal infections, Urinary track infections, surgical infections, etc. The combination is not official in any of the pharmacopeia for their content and impurities determination.

Introduction:

The present study involves the development of a simple, rapid, accurate, sensitive and stability indicating RP-HPLC method for the quantitative estimation of Cefoperazone Sulbactam mixture and its impurities in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage forms.

Methods:

0.005 M Tetrabutyl ammonium hydroxide buffer solution pH adjusted to 6.80 and Acetonitrile combination has been used in a gradient programme with a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. The retention time of Cefoperazone and Sulbactam were observed at around 8.5 and 19.5 minutes respectively. The UV detection was carried out at a wavelength of 230 nm. The chromatographic separation was achieved using Waters xbridge C18-150*4.6 mm, 3.5 µm HPLC column. The method has been validated according to the current International Council for Harmonization (ICH) guidelines for the method validation parameters such as Specificity, linearity, range, accuracy, precision, robustness and sensitivity.

Results:

The validation results indicate that the method is specific, as the known impurities and other impurities formed during the forced degradation studies were not co-eluting with the main components. Moreover, all these impurities were found to be spectrally pure, proving the stability indicating power of the method. The linearity and range of the method is in the range of 0.01-150%, highly accurate (100.2%), precise (<1%) and robust.

Conclusion:

The proposed method was accurate and specific for the quantitative analysis of Cefoperazone and Sulbactam and their related impurities in the sterile mixture. Hence the proposed method can be used for the quantification of impurities in routine as well as stability analysis in the development as well as quality control laboratories.

Dual-channel Microchip Electrophoresis with Amperometric Detection System for Rapid Analysis of Cefoperazone and Sulbactam

A dual-channel microchip electrophoresis (ME) with in-channel amperometric detection was developed for cefoperazone and sulbactam determination simultaneously. In this study, a microelectrode detector was made of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) modified indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated poly-ethylene terephthalate (PET) film. The parameters including detection potential applied on working electrode, buffer concentration and pH value were optimized to improve the detection sensitivity and separation efficiency of cefoperazone and sulbactam. Under the optimal conditions, sensitive detection of cefoperazone and sulbactam was obtained with limits of detection (LODs) (S/N = 3) of 0.52 and 0.75 μg/mL, respectively. The plasma sample, which was from a patient with a brain injury taking Sulperazone, was successfully detected with a simple sample pretreatment process by dual-channel ME amperometric detection. This rapid and sensitive method possesses practical potential in clinical applications, and could provide a guidance for clinical rational drug use.

Determination of cefoperazone and sulbactam in serum by HPLC-MS/MS: An adapted method for therapeutic drug monitoring in children

A rapid, accurate and specific high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method has been validated for the simultaneous determination of cefoperazone and sulbactam in a small volume sample for children. A Shim-pack XR-ODS C₁₈ column with gradient elution of water (0.1% formic acid) and acetonitrile (0.1% formic acid) solution was used for separation at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. The calibration curves of two analytes in serum showed excellent linearity over the concentration ranges of 0.03-10 μg/mL for cefoperazone, and 0.01-3 μg/mL for sulbactam, respectively. This method involves simple sample preparation steps and was validated according to standard US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency guidelines in terms of selectivity, linearity, detection limits, matrix effects, accuracy, precision, recovery and stability. This assay can be easily implemented in clinical practice to determine concentrations of cefoperazone and sulbactam in children.

Determination of Cefoperazone Sodium in Presence of Related Impurities by Improved Classical Least Squares Chemometric Methods: A Comparative Study

A comparative study is established among 4 chemometric models depending on classical least squares (CLS) approach, namely, spectral residual augmented CLS (SRACLS), net analyte processing CLS (NAP-CLS), orthogonal signal correction CLS (OSC-CLS), and direct orthogonal signal correction CLS (DOSC-CLS). The comparison is expressed through analysis of a case study dataset of UV spectral data of Cefoperazone Sodium (CEF) and its two related impurities: in pure powder form and in pharmaceutical dosage form. Four-level three-factor experimental design was established for optimum analysis. The adopted experimental design gave rise to a training set consisting of 16 mixtures (containing different ratios of interfering species). To test the prediction power of the suggested models, an independent test set consisting of 9 mixtures was used. The presented results show the ability of the proposed models to quantify CEF in presence of two related impurities with high accuracy and selectivity (103.76±1.03,102.07±0.91,101.61±0.72, and101.60±0.72for SRACLS, NAP-CLS, OSC-CLS, and DOSC-CLS, resp.). Dosage form analysis results were compared statistically to a published HPLC methodology showing insignificant difference in terms of precision and accuracy, indicating the suggested models reliability and their suitability for quality control analysis of drug product. Compared to other models, OSC-CLS and DOSC-CLS models gave more accurate results with lower prediction error for test set samples.

Development of an optimized HPLC method for the simultaneous determination of six compounds containing β-lactam ring in human plasma and urine using experimental design methodology

β-Lactam antibiotics are commonly prescribed with β-lactamase inhibitors to patients, for that it is necessary to develop an optimized chromatographic method which determine them simultaneously in biological fluids.

Determination of Cefoperazone Sodium in Presence of Related Impurities by Linear Support Vector Regression and Partial Least Squares Chemometric Models

A comparison between partial least squares regression and support vector regression chemometric models is introduced in this study. The two models are implemented to analyze cefoperazone sodium in presence of its reported impurities, 7-aminocephalosporanic acid and 5-mercapto-1-methyl-tetrazole, in pure powders and in pharmaceutical formulations through processing UV spectroscopic data. For best results, a 3-factor 4-level experimental design was used, resulting in a training set of 16 mixtures containing different ratios of interfering moieties. For method validation, an independent test set consisting of 9 mixtures was used to test predictive ability of established models. The introduced results show the capability of the two proposed models to analyze cefoperazone in presence of its impurities 7-aminocephalosporanic acid and 5-mercapto-1-methyl-tetrazole with high trueness and selectivity (101.87 ± 0.708 and 101.43 ± 0.536 for PLSR and linear SVR, resp.). Analysis results of drug products were statistically compared to a reported HPLC method showing no significant difference in trueness and precision, indicating the capability of the suggested multivariate calibration models to be reliable and adequate for routine quality control analysis of drug product. SVR offers more accurate results with lower prediction error compared to PLSR model; however, PLSR is easy to handle and fast to optimize.

An UHPLC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous determination of ampicillin and sulbactam in human plasma and urine

BACKGROUND

With few new antibiotics available and an increased prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacteria, optimizing the effectiveness of currently available antibiotics and minimizing the potential for emerging resistance, through PK characterization, is of paramount importance.

RESULTS

Inter- and intra-assay results for ampicillin were within 5% for accuracy and 7% for precision, and for sulbactam within 7% for accuracy and 7% for precision, for both plasma and urine. The plasma Cmax was 38.4 µg/ml for ampicillin and 19.0 µg/ml for sulbactam. The urine concentrations were 668 µg/ml for ampicillin and 438 µg/ml for sulbactam.

CONCLUSION

An UHPLC-MS/MS method to simultaneously measure co-formulated ampicillin and sulbactam in plasma and urine, for use in a patient PK study, has been developed and validated.

Ultraperformance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric method for determination of ampicillin and characterization of its forced degradation products

In the current study, a rapid and sensitive UPLC-MS method has been developed for the quantitative analysis of ampicillin in pure and pharmaceutical formulations. Forced degradation analysis was performed and the stress degradation product thus obtained was characterized by mass spectrometry. The chromatographic separation was carried out using BEH C18 column (100 × 2.1 mm, 1.7 µm particle size) using a binary mobile phase mixture of 0.001% acetic acid in water and methanol (30:70). The flow rate was set at 0.3 mL min(-1). The total chromatographic analysis time for ampicillin was as short as 1.5 min. The detection and quantitation of the studied drug was carried out using positive electrospray ionization and selected ion reaction modes. The developed method was found to be linear over the concentration range of 0.25-3.0 µg mL(-1). The recovery studies suggest an excellent recovery of the procedure which was found in the range of 99.45-100.90%. The relative standard deviation range of the developed analytical procedure ranged from 1.98 to 2.67% in intraday studies and 2.38-2.98% in case of interday study. The limit of detection and limit of quantitation of the method were found to be 0.016 and 0.049 µg mL(-1), respectively.

UV spectrophotometric simultaneous determination of cefoperazone and sulbactam in pharmaceutical formulations by derivative, Fourier and wavelet transforms

Signal processing methods based on the use of derivative, Fourier and wavelet transforms were proposed for the spectrophotometric simultaneous determination of cefoperazone and sulbactam in powders for injection. These transforms were successfully applied to UV spectra and ratio spectra to find suitable working wavelengths. Wavelet signal processing was proved to have distinct advantages (i.e. higher peak intensity obtained, additional smooth function and scaling factor process eliminated) over derivative and Fourier transforms. Especially, a better resolution of spectral overlapping bands was obtained by the use of double signal transform in the sequences such as (i) spectra pre-processed by Fractional Wavelet Transform and subsequently subjected to Continuous Wavelet Transform or Discrete Wavelet Transform, and (ii) derivative - wavelet transforms combined. Calibration graphs for cefoperazone and sulbactam were recorded for the range 10-35 mg/L. Good accuracy and precision were reported for all proposed methods by analyzing synthetic mixtures of cefoperazone and sulbactam. Furthermore, these methods were statistically comparable to RP-HPLC.

Adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetric determination of cefoperazone in bulk powder, pharmaceutical dosage forms, and human urine

The electroreduction behaviour and determination of cefoperazone using a hanging mercury drop electrode were investigated. Cyclic voltammograms of cefoperazone recorded in universal Britton-Robinson buffers pH 3-6 exhibited a single irreversible cathodic peak. The process was adsorption-controlled. Britton-Robinson buffer 0.04 M pH 4.0 was selected as a supporting electrolyte for quantitative purposes by differential pulse and square wave adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetry. The experimental voltammetric conditions were optimized using Central Composite Face design. A reduction wave was seen in the range from -0.7 to -0.8 V. These voltammetric techniques were successfully validated as per ICH guidelines and applied for the determination of cefoperazone in its single and sulbactam containing powders for injection and statistically comparable to USP-HPLC. They were further extended to determine cefoperazone in spiked human urine with no matrix effect.

Application of ultrasound-assisted matrix solid-phase dispersion extraction to the HPLC confirmatory determination of cephalosporin residues in milk

Ultrasound-assisted matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) was applied to isolate eight cephalosporins (cefadroxil, cefaclor, cephalexin, cefotaxime, cefazolin, cefuroxime, cefoperazone and ceftiofur) from milk. Multi-residue analysis was subsequently performed by HPLC-diode array detection. Extraction yield by matrix solid-phase dispersion using Nexus sorbent was higher than various investigated SPE protocols. Three analytical columns, two conventional silica based and one monolithic, were compared based on resolution, peak shape and retention time. The optimum method using Chromolith RP-18e (100×4.6 mm) achieved separation in less than 16 min. Method validation was performed according to the European Union Decision 2002/657/EC, determining linearity, selectivity, stability, decision limit, detection capability, accuracy and precision. RSD values observed were lower than 15.3%. Recovery rates of examined antimicrobials from milk ranged from 93.8 to 101.9% for cefadroxil, from 94.7 to 103.6% for cefaclor, from 93.4 to 106.6% for cephalexine, from 104.1 to 115.3% for cefotaxime, from 97.1 to 105.6% for cefazolin, from 97.4 to 108.6% for cefuroxime, from 98.8 to 103.4% for cefoperazone and from 95.5 to 103.6% for ceftiofur. Correlation coefficients ranged from 0.9926 to 0.9999. CC(b) values were in the range from 103.5 to 112.3 μg/kg for analytes with a maximum residue limit of 100 μg/kg and from 54.4 to 56.3 μg/kg for those with a maximum residue limit of 50 μg/kg.

Quick bioanalytical method of quantification and validation of sulbactam in plasma using high performance liquid chromatography

A quick method of quantitative determination of sulbactam in human plasma, using liquid chromatography-UV spectroscopy, has been developed and validated. After derivatization with imidazole, plasma samples were treated by direct deproteinization with acetonitrile as an extraction solvent. After ultracentrifugation, sulbactam extract was directly injected onto the LC column. Chromatographic separation was performed on TSK Gel Super ODS (50 mm × 4.6 mm i.d., 2 μm) using methanol and phosphate buffer with tetrabutylammonium hydroxide solution as a mobile phase. Gradient elution was employed. The method was fully validated according to the United States Food and Drug Administration requirements (linearity, precision, trueness, quantification limit, detection limit, recovery, specificity and stability). The calibration curves were linear within the concentration range of 0.05–4.0 μg mL−1. Good method/system precision and accuracy of the method were demonstrated.

Determination of vancomycin in human plasma using high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with fluorescence detection for the quantification of vancomycin in human plasma was developed and validated. The method includes an extraction of vancomycin by deproteinization with acetonitrile. The analyses were carried out at 258 nm as the emission wavelength while exciting at 225 nm on a reversed-phase column (30 cm x 4 mm i.d. x 10 microm Waters Associates microBondapak C18) using a mobile phase composed of methanol and phosphate buffer at pH 6.3. Vancomycin was quantitatively recovered from human plasma samples (>96%) with high values of precision. The separation was completed within 27 min. The calibration curve was linear over the range from 5 to 1,000 ng/mL with the detection and quantification limits of 2 ng/mL and 5 ng/mL, respectively. This method is suitable for the routine assay of plasma samples.