Comparative study of coulometric and amperometric detection for the determination of macrolides in human urine using high-performance liquid chromatography

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method using chromatographic conditions optimised in a previous work was applied for the separation of three macrolide antibiotics roxithromycin (Rox), oleandomycin (Ole) and rosamicin (Ros) and further determination of two of them, roxithromycin (Rox) and oleandomycin (Ole), in human urine samples. A comparative study of the behaviour of these macrolides under the two types of electrochemical detection (EC) widely coupled with HPLC, that is coulometric (EC-C) and amperometric (EC-A), was carried out by applying the same multiresidue method. From the assays performed using both detectors the comparison was made taking relevant criteria such as detection limits, linearity, recovery and precision values into account. As a result of this comparison, the coulometric detector appears slightly more suitable than the amperometric one for macrolide analysis.