Estimation of impurity profiles of drugs and related materials Part 19:: Theme with variations.: Identification of impurities in 3-oxosteroids

Due to the varied reactions leading to the 3-ore group in steroids and the reactivity of its environment, a large number of impurities related to this group are formed during the reaction steps and the degradation studies. In this paper the experiences from the authors laboratory with the 3-oxo-related impurities in 19-nor-4-ene-3-oxosteroids (norgestrel, norethisterone, nandrolone, its esters and Nestorone(TM)) as well as corticosteroids (prednisolone, mazipredone, etc) are presented. The impurities include saturated 3-ones, 1-ene-3-ones, 5(10)-ene-3-ones, 3-deoxo and 3-ethinyl-3,5-diene derivatives, 6-ene, 8(14)-ene, 6,8(14)-diene, 6-hydroxy (alpha and beta), 10 beta-hydroxy and 6-one derivatives in 4-ene-3-oxosteroids and 8(9)-ene, 9(11)-ene, 11 alpha-hydroxy, 11-oxo and 4-ene-3-one derivatives in 11 beta-hydroxy-1,4-diene-3-oxosteroids. The chromatographic, spectroscopic and hyphenated techniques used in this study include TLC, GC, HPLC with diode array UV detector, GC-MS, LC-MS and NMR methods. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.