Development of the second-order derivative UV spectrophotometric method for direct determination of paracetamol in urine intended for biopharmaceutical characterisation of drug products.

Paracetamol is a widely used nonsalicylate analgesic and antipyretic drug. The existing methods for the determination of paracetamol in biological fluids are mainly HPLC techniques, although there are some reported methods based on spectrophotometric determinations. However, all these methods involve some extraction or derivatisation procedures. In the present study the UV spectra of investigated samples were recorded over the wavelength range 220-400 nm (lambda step 0.21 nm; scan speed 60 nm/min) and second-order derivative spectra were calculated. Second-order derivative spectra of different blank urine samples displayed the presence of a zero-crossing point at 245-247 nm defined as lambdazc. The zero-order absorption spectra of paracetamol in water displays maximum absorbance at 243 nm, while in second derivative spectra, a minimum peak at 246 nm was observed. Therefore, the application of zero-crossing technique to the second-derivative UV absorption spectrum should be useful for the determination of paracetamol using 2Dlambdazc. The proposed method enables determination of total paracetamol in urine directly and simply by reading the 2Dlambdazc of the diluted samples. The obtained results were in good accordance with published data on cumulative urinary excretion after per oral administration of paracetamol obtained applying different spectrophotometric methods of determination. It could be useful for biopharmaceutical characterisation of drug products (monitoring of the levels of paracetamol in urine in bioavailability testing, for the evaluation of in vitro-in vivo correlation and screening of different formulations during drug product development). Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.