Quality evaluation of Shenmaidihuang Pills based on the chromatographic fingerprints and simultaneous determination of seven bioactive constituents

In this study, we aimed to establish a comprehensive and practical quality evaluation system for Shenmaidihuang pills. A simple and reliable high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection method was developed both for fingerprint analysis and quantitative determination. In fingerprint analysis, relative retention time and relative peak area were used to identify the common peaks in 18 samples for investigation. Twenty one peaks were selected as the common peaks to evaluate the similarities of 18 Shenmaidihuang pills samples with different manufacture dates. Furthermore, similarity analysis was applied to evaluate the similarity of samples. Hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis were also performed to evaluate the variation of Shenmaidihuang pills. In quantitative analysis, linear regressions, injection precisions, recovery, repeatability and sample stability were all tested and good results were obtained to simultaneously determine the seven identified compounds, namely, 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural, morroniside, loganin, paeonol, paeoniflorin, psoralen, isopsoralen in Shenmaidihuang pills. The contents of some analytes in different batches of samples indicated significant difference, especially for 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural. So, it was concluded that the chromatographic fingerprint method obtained by high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection associated with multiple compounds determination is a powerful and meaningful tool to comprehensively conduct the quality control of Shenmaidihuang pills.