Automated Solid Phase Extraction and Hplc Analysis of Ibuprofen in Plasma

Abstract

Ibuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, widely used in arthritis and other disorders. We describe a high pressure liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the analysis of ibuprofen in plasma, using an automated solid phase extraction technique (the Varian AASP^R). In this method ibuprofen was extracted from 0.5 ml of plasma by application to a C₂ extraction cartridge followed by “on line” elution with the HPLC mobile phase (55% acetonitrile / 45% 0.02 H phosphate buffer; pH 3.0), at a flow rate of 1.5 ml/min. The analytical column was a Nucleosil C₁₈ column and the fluorescence detector was set at 253 nm (excitation wavelength) and 300 nm (emission wavelength). Chromatography was complete in less than 10 mins and the limit of detection was 1.3 /μg/ml. The method is linear through the range of 1.0 to 100.0 /μg/ml with a mean correlation coefficient of 0.9964. Absolute recovery of ibuprofen from the spiked plasma samples ranged from 77.8% to 86.5%. The method was shown to be precise within 11% C.V. and accurate to within 8% over the concentration range studied.