Micellar HPLC and derivative spectrophotometric methods for the simultaneous determination of fluconazole and tinidazole in pharmaceuticals and biological fluids.

Micellar high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and first-derivative ultraviolet spectrophotometry were used to simultaneously determine fluconazole (FLZ) and tinidazole (TNZ) in combined pharmaceutical dosage forms. The derivative procedure is based on the linear relationship between the drug concentration and the first derivative amplitudes at 220 and 288 nm for FLZ and TNZ, respectively. The calibration graphs were linear in the range of 1.5-9.0 µg/mL for FLZ and 10.0-60.0 µg/mL for TNZ. Furthermore, an HPLC procedure with ultraviolet detection at 210 nm was developed. For the HPLC procedure, good chromatographic separation was achieved using an ODS C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm i.d.). The mobile phase containing 0.15M sodium dodecyl sulphate, 0.3% triethylamine and 12% n-propanol in 0.02M orthophosphoric acid at pH 5.5 was pumped at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Indapamide was used as an internal standard. The method showed good linearity over the concentration ranges of 1.5-30.0 and 10.0-200.0 µg/mL, with limits of detection of 0.36 and 2.70 µg/mL and limits of quantification of 1.1 and 8.2 µg/mL for FLZ and TNZ, respectively. The suggested methods were successfully applied for the simultaneous analysis of the drugs in their laboratory prepared mixture, co-formulated tablet and single dosage forms. Moreover the second method was also extended to the determination of the drugs in biological fluids.