Analysis of pharmaceutical preparations containing local anesthetics by micellar liquid chromatography and spectrophotometric detection

Summary An HPLC procedure for the determination of six local anesthetics, bupivacaine, lidocaine, mepivacaine, procaine, propanocaine and tetracaine, in pharmaceutical silane ODS-2 C₁₈ analytical column and spectrophotometric detection at 230 nm were used. The chromatographic tographic behaviour of local anesthetics with different micellar eluents of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) is described. Selection of the adequate composition of the micellar mobile phase (SDS and 1-propanol concentrations) for the analysis of pharmaceuticals was studied. Adequate retention was achieved with an eluent containing 0.15 M SDS +10% 1-propanol at pH 3. Application of the proposed method to the analysis of eight pharmaceutical formulations gave recoveries between 93 and 100.2% of the values declared by the manufacturers. The proposed procedure for the determination of local anesthetics is rapid, reliable and free from interferences.