Spectrophotometric determination of etodolac in pure form and pharmaceutical formulations

BACKGROUND Etodolac (ETD) is a non-steroidal anti-inflamatory antirheumatic drug. A survey of the literature reveals that there is no method available for the determination of ETD in pure form and pharmaceutical formulations by oxidation-reduction reactions. RESULTS We describe three simple, sensitive and reproducible spectrophotometric assays (A-C) for the determination of etodolac in pure form and in pharmaceutical formulations. Methods A and B are based on the oxidation of etodolac by Fe3+ in the presence of o-phenanthroline (o-phen) or bipyridyl (bipy). The formation of the tris-complex on reaction with Fe3+-o-phen and/or Fe3+-bipy mixtures in acetate buffer solution at optimum pH was demonstrated at 510 and 520 nm with o-phen and bipy. Method C is based on the oxidation of etodolac by Fe3+ in acidic medium, and the subsequent interaction of iron(II) with ferricyanide to form Prussian blue, with the product exhibiting an absorption maximum at 726 nm. The concentration ranges are 0.5-8, 1.0-10 and 2-18 microg mL(-1) respectively for methods A, B and C. For more accurate analysis, Ringbom optimum concentration ranges were calculated, in addition to molar absorptivity, Sandell sensitivity, detection and quantification limits. CONCLUSION Our methods were successfully applied to the determination of etodolac in bulk and pharmaceutical formulations without any interference from common excipients. The relative standard deviations were <or= 0.76 %, with recoveries of 99.87 % - 100.21 %.