Comparison of Second Derivative-Spectrophotometric and Reversed-phase HPLC Methods for the Determination of Prednisolone in Pharmaceutical Formulations

Second derivative-spectrophotometric and high-performance liquid chromatographic methods for the determination of prednisolone in pharmaceutical formulations have been developed. Determination of prednisolone in tablets was conducted by using a second-order derivative UV spectrophotometric method at 250 nm (n = 5). Standards for the calibration graph ranging from 5.0 to 35.0 μg/ml were prepared from stock solution. The proposed method was accurate, with 98% recovery value, and precise, with a coefficient of variation (CV) of 1.38. These results were compared with those obtained by an exclusively developed isocratic reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. An isocratic reversed-phase Bondapak C18 column with acetonitrile–citrophosphate buffer (pH 5; 45:55 v/v) mobile phase was used and UV detector was set to 241 nm using 11α-hydroxyprogesterone as an internal standard. Calibration solutions used in HPLC were in the range from 2 to 300 μg/ml. Results obtained by derivative UV spectrophotometric method were comparable to those obtained by HPLC method, as far as analysis of variance (ANOVA) test, Fcalculated, 0.762 and Ftheoretical, 3.89, results were concerned.