Simultaneous high-performance liquid chromatographic assay of furosemide and propranolol HCL and its application in a pharmacokinetic study

A practical, sensitive, selective and efficient reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method is reported for the determination of two commonly used antihypertensive drugs, furosemide and propranolol hydrochloride. The drugs were eluted through a Nucleosil C-18 column with a mobile phase composed of 0.02 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate and acetonitrile (80:20, v/v) adjusted to pH 4.5 and the effluent from the column was monitored at 235 nm. The present method enabled simple and isocratic HPLC with UV detection of these drugs in raw materials and in pharmaceutical formulations. These procedures were also applied for the assay of furosemide in rabbits' plasma, using propranolol hydrochloride as an internal standard. The linear concentration range of the assay was 0.1-200 and 5-200 mug ml(-1) for furosemide and propranolol hydrochloride, respectively. The inter and intra-day assay precision and accuracy showed reproducibility and good linearity (r(2) > 0.99). The method retained its accuracy and precision when applying the standard addition technique. The results obtained by applying the proposed method was statistically analysed and compared with those obtained by the reported methods. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.