Liquid chromatographic analysis of halofantrine from dosage form and its metal interaction studies

Abstract

The reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of halofantrine from dosage form in presence of losartan potassium as an internal standard. Separation was performed on a Chrompack hypersil C₁₈ (150 × 4.6 mm) analytical reversed-phase column. Mobile phase consisted of methanol–water (70:30, v/v) pH was adjusted to 3.2 with 85% orthophosphoric acid. Mobile phase was pumped at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min⁻¹ and UV detection was performed at 248 nm. The method was validated for linearity, precision, accuracy and specificity. The linearity was observed in the concentration range 1.0–50 μg mL⁻¹ with correlation coefficient (r ²) of 0.9998. Accuracy was ranged 98–100% with precision less than 1%. The limits of detection (LOD) and (LOQ) were 0.01 and 0.03 μg mL⁻¹, respectively. This method was applied to study the drug–metal (calcium, magnesium, manganese, cobalt, ferrous, ferric chromium, zinc, nickel, cadmium, iron and copper) interaction studies which were carried out at 37 °C. These studies were beneficial to determine the drug in therapeutic concentrations inside human body as well as its complexation with metal ions. The proposed method is rapid, accurate, economical and selective because of its sensitivity and reproducibility.