Improved and Rapid Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Indomethacin in Serum

Square-wave adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetric determination of anti-inflammatory indomethacin drug in tablets and human serum at a mercury electrode

Indomethacin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug possessing anti-pyretic and analgesic properties. A fully validated square-wave adsorptive cathodic stripping voltammetric procedure is described for determination of indomethacin. The procedure was based on the reduction of the C=O double bond of the drug molecule in Britton-Robinson buffer (pH 4) after its preconcentration onto the mercury electrode surface. The optimized conditions of the procedure were: frequency 120 Hz, scan increment 10 mV, pulse amplitude 50 mV, preconcentration potential -0.9 V (vs. Ag/AgCl/KCl(s)) and preconcentration time 90 s. The proposed procedure was successfully applied for determination of the drug in tablets and human serum with good recoveries. The limits of detection in bulk form and human serum were 6.7 x 10(-10) mol L(-1) and 8.1 x 10(-10) mol L(-1), respectively.

Encapsulated hydrophilic polymer beads containing indomethacin as controlled release drug delivery systems

Encapsulated hydrophilic polymer beads containing indomethacin were prepared by a combined technique of bead polymerization and phase separation. The drug delivery system consisted of the copolymer of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and acrylamide as the core matrix and ethyl cellulose as the barrier membrane. The drug was incorporated into the polymer matrix during the formation of the beads. The system was found to be useful as a sustained release dosage form. Release of drug from the coated beads followed a zero-order rate up to 40% of the drug released. A linear relationship exists between the rate of release and the reciprocal amount of ethyl cellulose used for coating, indicating that the drug release was controlled by the coating thickness. Addition of polyvinyl pyrrolidone in the formulation significantly increased the amount of drug released. Blood level studies showed that drug absorption from the encapsulated beads was lower than that of indomethacin powder. It appeared that indomethacin was completely absorbed from the encapsulated beads.

Plasma indomethacin assay by reversed-phase ion pair high pressure liquid chromatography

A new rapid, selective and sensitive high pressure liquid chromatographic (HPLC) assay for indomethacin in plasma is described. The method involves precipitation of proteins with perchloric acid, followed by dichloromethane extraction using flurbiprofen as an internal standard. The organic solvent was evaporated and the residue dissolved in a water-methanol (2 + 3) phosphate buffer mixture with an apparent pH of 6.8. Aliquots of 100 microliters were injected automatically into the chromatograph. The separation of indomethacin was achieved on a reversed phase (C18, 10 micron) column with a mobile phase consisting of 65% (vol/vol) methanol in water solution of apparent pH 6.8 containing tetrabutylammonium hydrogensulfate as an ion pairing agent. Quantitation of indomethacin was performed by UV detection at 235 nm. At a 2.0 mg X l-1 concentration of indomethacin in plasma the analytical recovery was 82.9 +/- 3.4% (n = 7), the intra-day variability (CV) was 3.6% (n = 7) and the inter-day variability (CV) was 11.0% (n = 7). The calibration curve was linear (typical r-values greater than 0.990) in the range of plasma concentrations as usually found during indomethacin therapy (up to 6 mg X l-1). The limit of sensitivity is 0.025 mg X l-1. The metabolites O-desmethylindomethacin and O-desmethyldeschlorobenzoylindomethacin did not interfere with the method. The capacity of an analyst using this method with automated injection and peak integration is about forty samples in duplicate per day. The applicability of the method for pharmacokinetic studies is demonstrated.