A Validated Stability Indicating LC Method for Mitotane in Bulk Drugs and Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms

A novel, sensitive, stability indicating RP-LC method has been developed for the quantitative determination of mitotane, its impurity in both bulk drugs and pharmaceutical dosage forms. Efficient chromatographic separation was achieved using a C18 stationary phase with simple mobile phase combination delivered in an isocratic mode and quantitation was by ultraviolet detection at a wavelength of 230 nm. The mobile phase consisted of buffer and acetonitrile (25:75, v/v) delivered at a flow rate of 1.0 mL min^?1. Buffer consisted of 10 mM potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate monohydrate, pH adjusted to 2.5 by orthophosphoric acid. In the developed LC method the resolution (R _s ) between mitotane and its impurity namely Imp-1 was found to be greater than 2.5. Regression analysis shows an r value (correlation coefficient) greater than 0.999 for mitotane and its impurity. This method was capable to detect the impurity of mitotane at a level of 0.003% with respect to test a concentration of 0.2 mg mL^?1 for a 10 μL injection volume. The inter- and intra-day precision values for mitotane and its impurity was found to be within 2.0% RSD. The method has shown good and consistent recoveries for mitotane in bulk drugs (99.2–101.5%), pharmaceutical dosage forms (98.2–103.1%) and for its impurity (99.7–102.1%). The test solution was found to be stable in diluent for 48 h. The drug was subjected to stress conditions of hydrolysis, oxidation, photolysis and thermal degradation. Considerable degradation was found to occur in basic stress hydrolysis. The stress samples were assayed against a qualified reference standard and the mass balance was found close to 99.97%. The developed RP-LC method was validated with respect to linearity, accuracy, precision and robustness.