Comparison of HPLC and multivariate regression methods for hydrocortisone and lidocaine analysis of pharmaceutical preparations

Abstract.

A reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method to determine hydrocortisone acetate, hydrocortisone hemisuccinate and lidocaine is described in this paper. The separation was made in a LichrCART C₁₈ column using a methanol–NaH₂PO₄/Na₂HPO₄ (0.1 mol L^–1) (pH=4.5) buffer solution as a mobile phase in isocratic mode (60:40 (v/v)). The mobile phase flow rate and the sample volume injected were 1 mL min^–1 and 20 µL, respectively. The detection was made with a diode-array detector measuring at the maximum for each compound. Quantification limits ranging from 0.18 to 0.84 µg L^–1 were obtained when the peak area was measured. The method was applied in pharmaceutical formulations that were compared with those obtained by through multivariate regression spectrophotometry and micellar capillary electrophoresis (MEKC). HPLC results are in accordance with the results obtained by MEKC. The spectrophotometric method was suitable only for synthetic samples.