Evaluation of RP-HPLC Method Intended for the Analysis of Cefuroxime Axetil and ITS Impurities Supported by Experimental Design

Abstract

In this paper, a chemometrically assisted validation of RP-HPLC method, intended for the quantitative analysis of cefuroxime axetil (A and B), cefuroxime acid, cefuroxime lactone, cefuroxime axetil sulfoxide (A and B), ∆³-cefuroxime axetil and anti cefuroxime axetil (A and B) in tablets, is presented. Since the successful separation could be achieved with the mobile phase containing only methanol and water, Luna C18 column was selected for the analysis. Under these circumstances, the optimization was quite straightforward and included only a fine tuning of the chromatographic conditions to reduce total run time and maintain the achieved separation. The established method was then subjected to the method validation and the required validation parameters were tested. For the robustness evaluation, a fractional factorial 2⁴⁻¹ design was utilized and factors that might significantly affect the system performance were defined. For the significant factors, the non-significant intervals were determined and the acceptable system suitability limit for resolution factor between cefuroxime axetil A and cefuroxime axetil ∆³ isomer (R ₂) was calculated. As the other validation parameters were also found to be suitable, the possibility to apply the proposed method for the determination of cefuroxime axetil, cefuroxime acid, cefuroxime lactone, cefuroxime axetil sulfoxide, ∆³-cefuroxime axetil and anti cefuroxime axetil in any laboratory under different circumstances is proven.