Spectrofluorimetric determination of sertraline in dosage forms and human plasma through derivatization with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate

Background: Sertraline is primarily used to treat major depression in adult outpatients as well as obsessive-compulsive, panic and social anxiety disorders in both adults and children. A survey of the literature reveals that most of the reported methods are either insufficiently sensitive or tedious and require highly sophisticated and dedicated instrumentation. The proposed method is considered to be specific for determination of SER in presence of its metabolite (deaminated form). Results: A sensitive, simple and specific spectrofluorimetric method was developed for the determination of sertraline (SER) in pharmaceutical formulations and biological fluids. The method is based on its reaction with 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC-Cl) in borate buffer of pH 8.0 to yield a highly fluorescent derivative peaking at 315 nm after excitation at 265 nm. The different experimental parameters affecting the development and stability of the reaction product were carefully studied and optimized. The fluorescence concentration plot was rectilinear over the range of 0.05-1.0 mu g mL(-1) with a lower detection limit of 5.34 x 10(-3) mu g mL(-1) and limit of quantitation of 0.016 mu g mL(-1). Conclusions: The proposed method was successfully applied to the analysis of commercial tablets and the results obtained were in good agreement with those obtained using the reference method. Furthermore, the method was applied for the determination of SER in spiked and real human plasma. The mean % recovery (n = 3) was 94.33 +/- 1.53 and 92.00 +/- 2.65, respectively. A proposal of the reaction pathway was postulated.