DEVELOPMENT OF A RAPID CAPILLARY ZONE ELECTROPHORESIS METHOD TO QUANTIFY LEVOFLOXACIN AND MELOXICAM FROM TRANSDERMAL THERAPEUTIC SYSTEMS

Abstract

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) could be a useful technique for the quantification of active substances from transdermal therapeutic systems (TTSs). TTSs are pharmaceutical forms in development that may release one or more active substances with some significant advantages as increased compliance to treatment, avoidance of first hepatic passage and low manufacturing costs. A simple, reliable, efficient, and low-cost CZE method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of levofloxacin (fluoroquinolone) and meloxicam (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) from TTSs. The selected experimental parameters were 50 mM borax (pH 9.3) as background electrolyte, +25 kV applied voltage, 50 mbar/5 seconds hydrodynamic injection and 40°C temperature, using an uncoated fused-silica capillary with (51 cm total length/43 cm effective length, 50 µm i.d.). CZE experiments were performed in less than four minutes with a resolution of 7.79 at a wavelength of 335 nm. Validation of the method presented good linearity data, precision (RDS% < 1 for migration times and RDS% < 2 for peaks area) and sensitivity (LOD 3.43 and 16.05 μg·mL^-1, LOQ 10.38 and 54.55 μg·mL^-1 for levofloxacin and meloxicam, respectively). Recovery of the active substances ranged between 85.14% and 96.38%. Our developed CZE method proved its applicability for analysis of the two substances from TTSs.