Development and validation of a spectrofluorimetric method for the quantification of ceftriaxone in pharmaceutical formulations and plasma

We describe the development and validation of a new, simple, sensitive and cost‐effective method for the determination of ceftriaxone in commercial formulations and spiked human plasma. The method proposes the conversion of ceftriaxone into a fluorescent product by reacting with ortho‐phthalaldehyde (OPA) in the presence of sulfite at room temperature. The reaction medium is buffered to pH 10 using borate buffer. The derivatized reaction product is highly fluorescent and exhibits maximum fluorescence intensity at λ_em = 386 nm after excitation at λ_ex = 324 nm. The experimental parameters affecting progress of the derivatization reaction were carefully studied and optimized. Under optimum experimental conditions, the method has an excellent correlation coefficient of 0.9984 with a broad linear range of 0.4?20 µg/mL. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were found to be 1.30 × 10^?3 and 3.90 × 10^?3 µg/mL, respectively. The interference effects of common excipients on the quantification of drug were investigated and no interference effect was observed. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of ceftriaxone in pharmaceutical formulations and spiked human plasma samples. The method has been validated statistically through percent recovery studies using standard addition and by comparison with a reference HPLC method. The developed method exhibits excellent inter‐ and intraday precision. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.