Brief Review of Spectrophotometric Methods for the Detection of Tetracycline Antibiotics

Antibiotics are one of the most common pharmaceutical products, used for the treatment of bacterial ,fungal and parasitic infections. Among antibiotics, tetracyclines are extensively used in both human and animal welfare. Hence the monitoring and estimation of the levels of tetracycline in pharmaceutical products and effluents have become a necessity for researchers and industries. Current methods for estimation are based on high-level technologies ,and suffer from several disadvantages such as being time consuming, expensive and require extensive training to operate.Much focus has been made on the development of simple ,quick and inexpensive methods that can be used in a routine manner. Most methods use either redox reaction of the tetracycline using an oxidizing agent or the use of polyvalent cations for chelation and complexometric reactions. Spectrophotometric methods for detection of antibiotics are simple but rare. The objective of this review article is to present an insight into the various spectrophotometric methods available for the detection of tetracycline, with data regarding the reagents, wavelength used for the measurement and optimum concentration range applicable for each method.