Second-derivative spectrophotometric determination of naproxen in the presence of its metabolite in human plasma
Abstract
A second-derivative spectrophotometric method for the determination of naproxen in the absence or presence of its 6-desmethyl metabolite in human plasma is described. The method consists of direct extraction of the non-ionized form of the drug with pure diethyl ether and determination of the naproxen by measuring the peak amplitude (mm) in the second-order derivative spectrum at a wavelength of 328.2 nm. The efficiency of the extraction procedure expressed by the absolute recovery was 94.6 ± 0.7%(mean ±s) for the concentration range tested, and the limit of quantification attained according to the IUPAC definitation was 2.42 mg l–1. The linear dynamic range for naproxen was 5.0–100.0 mg l–1, the correlation coefficient for the calibration graphs was excellent, r= 0.99993 (n= 6), the precision (Sr) was better than 4.58% and the accuracy was satisfactory (Er < 2.32%). The results obtained by the proposed method were in good agreement with those found by an HPLC method.