Validated Method for the Determination of Deflazacort by a Flow‐Injection Analysis with UV Detection: Application to Pharmaceutical Formulations

Abstract

A simple, precise, accurate, and fast flow‐injection analysis (FIA) method employing UV detection is described for the determination of deflazacort (DEF) in pharmaceutical tablets. The best carrier solvent system consisted of EtOH: sodium dihydrogen phosphate (0.2 M) (20:80, v/v) (pH 6.0). Related parameters were elucidated and a flow‐rate of 1.3 mL min−1 was used and the analyte was monitored at 247 nm. In the optimum condition, the repeatability was in the range of 0.27–0.41 as intra‐day precision. The linearization was tested considering intra‐ and inter‐day experiments in the range of 1.0 × 10−5–5.0 × 10−5 M and good correlation coefficients were obtained. The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were calculated to be 2.35 × 10−7 and 7.04 × 10−7 M, respectively, as inter‐day results. The proposed method was applied to the determination of DEF in pharmaceutical preparations. Conventional UV‐spectrophotometry was used as a comparison method and their results were also compared to those of the FIA technique. Insignificant differences between FIA and UV‐spectrophotometric results were observed (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the tablets provide the general official requirements, 101.3% and 102.3%, respectively. Therefore, the proposed method is suggested to the routine laboratories for the determination of DEF in tablets.