Determination of lomefloxacin in biological fluids by high-performance liquid chromatography and a microbiological method.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method (HPLC) was developed for the determination of lomefloxacin in plasma and urine and was compared to a microbiological assay. Lomefloxacin and norfloxacin (internal standard) were extracted from plasma and urine samples using chloroform. Measurements were carried out with a fluorescence detector using an excitation wavelength of 280 nm and an emission wavelength of 430 nm with a mercury lamp. Quantification was achieved by the measurement of the peak-height ratio and the analytical recovery of the drug from plasma and urine was found to be (mean +/- SD) 99.3 +/- 3.74% and 95.7% +/- 3.82%, respectively. In the microbiological assay, E. coli ATCC 1346 was the test organism using an agar diffusion technique. The coefficients of variation for within-day analysis for both the HPLC method and microbiological assay from plasma samples were less than 7%. The minimum detectable concentration for both the HPLC and the microbiological method was 50 ng/ml and 100 ng/ml, respectively. Both methods were used to determine the lomefloxacin level in plasma following intravenous administration to mice. Excellent agreement was obtained between the results of the two methods. The HPLC method offers significant advantages in accuracy, precision, speed of analysis and turnover-time.