Spectrophotometric determination of some antidepressant drugs using 3-methylbenzothiazolin-2-one hydrazone.

A sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of amitriptyline hydrochloride, nortriptyline hydrochloride and doxepin hydrochloride in pure and dosage forms, is described. The method is based on the oxidative coupling of the drugs with 3-methylbenzothiazolin-2-one hydrazone in the presence of iron(III) chloride in 1 M hydrochloric acid. The commonly encountered excipients and additives do not interfere with the determinations. Results of the present method are comparable with those of official methods. The new method offers the advantage of simplicity and rapidity.