Validated HPLC method for determination of chlorzoxazone in human serum and its application in a clinical pharmacokinetic study.

A high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the determination of chloroxazone in human serum using phenacetin as internal standard (IS) is described. Protein precipitation is used for preparation of the sample. A mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.5% acetic acid in water mixture (40:60 v/v) was used at a flow rate of 1 ml/min on a C18 column. The eluate was monitored using an UV/VIS detector set at 287 nm. Ratio of peak area of analyte to IS was used for quantification of serum samples. The absolute recovery was greater than 96% over a concentration range of 1 to 100 micrograms/ml and the limit of quantitation was 0.05 microgram/ml. The intra-day relative standard deviation (RSD) measured at 1, 10, 50, and 100 micrograms/ml ranged from 0.9 to 5.1%. The inter-day RSD ranged from 0.6 to 3.0%. The method is simple, sensitive and has been successfully used in pharmacokinetic study conducted in healthy human volunteers.