A reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for determination of cephalexin in human plasma

A reversed-phase HPLC method for the analysis of cephalexin (7-(aminophenylacetyl)amino]-3-methyl-8-oxo-5-thia-1-azabicyclo4.2.0]oct-2-ene-2-carboxylic acid) by isocratic separation is described. A comparison is made between the ultrafiltration land the extraction procedure developed in our laboratory. The extraction procedure, based on the deproteinization of plasma with perchloric acid followed by the extraction with dichloroethane and separation of cephalexin on a reversed phase column, gave better recovery. Quantitative validation of our method has been performed by an external standard technique. The relative standard deviations were between 1.1 and 1.9% in the within-day assay and between 1.2 and 2.2% in the inter-day assay. The limit of detection was 0.14ug/ml and the limit of quantification was 0.28ug/ml. This method is rapid, sensitive, simple, and reproducible. The LC MS/MS technique was successfully used for identification and quantification of cephalexin in human plasma samples.