Spectrofluorometric determination of fluvoxamine in dosage forms, spiked plasma, and real human plasma by derivatization with fluorescamine

A sensitive, simple, and selective spectrofluorometric method was developed for the determination of fluvoxamine (FXM) in pharmaceutical formulations and biological fluids. The method is based upon the reaction between the drug and fluorescamine in borate buffer of pH 8.0 to yield a highly fluorescent derivative that is measured at 481 nm after excitation at 383 nm. The different experimental parameters affecting the development and stability of the reaction product were carefully studied and optimized. The method was applied for the determination of the drug over the concentration range of 0.1-1.1 microg/mL with a detection limit of 0.01 microg/mL (2 x 10(-8) M). The proposed method was successfully applied to the analysis of commercial tablets. The results obtained were in good agreement with those obtained using a reported spectrophotometric method. The method was applied for the determination of FXM in spiked human plasma with recovery (n=4) of 97.32 +/- 1.23%, while that in real human plasma (n=3) was 90.79 +/- 2.73%. A proposal for the reaction pathway is presented.