Spectrofluorimetric determination of guanethidine sulphate, guanoxan sulphate and amiloride hydrochloride in tablets and in biological fluids using 9,10-phenanthraquinone.

A highly sensitive spectrofluorimetric method for the determination of some drugs of the monosubstituted guanidine derivatives in laboratory made tablets, in spiked human serum and in urine samples is presented. The method is based on the reaction of guanethidine sulphate (I), guanoxan sulphate (II) and amiloride hydrochloride (III) with 9,10-phenanthraquinone (IV) to give highly fluorescent derivatives. The linearity ranges were found to be 0.06-0.96 mug/ml for (I) and (II) and 0.04-0.28 mug/ml for (III), with relative standard deviation less than 2%. Mean percentage recoveries for tablets were found to be 99.9 +/- 1.3, 100.5 +/- 1.1 and 100.0 +/- 1.6 for I, II and III, respectively. For I and III the results are highly correlated with the B.P. methods. Using the synchronous fluorimetry, differentiation between I and II was possible. Chloroform, dichloromethane and ethyl acetate have been used to extract I, II and III, respectively from serum and urine at basic pH, followed by applying the proposed fluorimetric method. Percentage recoveries were found to be 95.7-102.2%. The limit of detection is 0.04 mug/ml for I and II and 0.02 mug/ml for III.