Applications of Potentiometric Sensors for the Determination of Drug Molecules in Biological Samples

Potentiometry is extensively studied by researchers as one of the electrochemical methods due to its multiple advantages. Until today, thousands of potentiometric sensors have been developed and applied successfully in many fields such as medicine, environmental monitoring, agriculture, industry and pharmaceutical sciences. Clinical drug analyses and determination of drugs in biological samples are highly important from a medical point of view. These analyses are carried out using various analytical devices including potentiometric sensors. These potentiometric sensors are superior to other devices in terms of several performance parameters, and thus present a good alternative for researchers. Using potentiometric sensors, very successful results in the identification of drug molecules in body fluids have been obtained and reported in the literature up to now. In this study, we review potentiometry-based sensors developed for the determination of drug molecules in various biological samples such as blood serum and urine, and touch upon their performance features in these applications.

Optimum HPLC Conditions for Determination of Dibucaine HCL, Fluocortolone Pivalate and Fluocortolone Caproate by Using Experimental Design

Introduction:

This paper presents the development and validation of a novel, fast, sensitive and accurate high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the simultaneous quantitative determination of dibucaine HCl, fluocortolone pivalate and fluocortolone caproate in pharmaceutical preparations.

Experiment:

Development of the chromatographic method was based on an experimental design approach. A five-level-three-factor central composite design requiring 20 experiments in this optimization study was performed in order to evaluate the effects of three independent variances including mobile phase ratio, flow rate and amount of acid in the mobile phase.

Conclusion:

The optimum composition for mobile phase was found as a methanol:water:acetic acid mixture at 71.6 : 26.4 : 2 (v/v/v) ratio and optimum separation was acquired by isocratic elution with a flow rate of 1.3 mL/min. The analytes were detected using a UV detector at 240 nm. The developed method was validated in terms of linearity, precision, accuracy, limit of detection/quantitation and solution stability and successfully applied to the determination of dibucaine HCl, fluocortolone pivalate and fluocortolone caproate in pharmaceutical topical formulations such as suppositories and ointments.