Simultaneous determination of diclofenac potassium and drotaverine hydrochloride in human plasma using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography

A simple high-performance liquid chromatographic method with ultraviolet detection is proposed for the estimation of diclofenac potassium and drotaverine hydrochloride in human plasma. Liquid-liquid extraction was carried out with a mixture of dichloromethane-isopropyl alcohol (80:20, v/v). Chromatographic separation of the analytes and internal standard was achieved on an analytical 250 × 4.6 mm i.d. reversed-phase Thermo BDS Hypersil C8 (5 μm particle size) column using a mobile phase of acetonitrile-0.02M ammonium acetate buffer (53:47, v/v) at pH 3.5. The run time was less than 15 min. Column eluate was monitored at 230 nm. The linearity over the concentration ranges of 25-1500 ng/mL and 32-960 ng/mL was obtained for diclofenac potassium and drotaverine hydrochloride, respectively. The limit of quantification was 25 and 32 ng/mL for diclofenac potassium and drotaverine hydrochloride, respectively. Recoveries of diclofenac potassium and drotaverine hydrochloride from plasma were 97.45% and 98.27%, respectively.