Stability-indicating spectrophotometric and spectrodensitometric methods for the determination of diacerein in the presence of its degradation product.

Three sensitive, selective, and precise stability-indicating methods for the determination of the novel osteoarthritis drug, diacerein (DIA) in the presence of its alkaline degradation product (active metabolite, rhein) and in pharmaceutical formulation were developed and validated. The first method is a first derivative (D(1) ) spectrophotometric one, which allows the determination of DIA in the presence of its degradate at 322 nm (corresponding to zero crossing of the degradate) over a concentration range of 4-40 µg/mL with mean percentage recovery 100.21 ± 0.833. The second method is the first derivative of the ratio spectra (DD(1) ) by measuring the peak amplitude at 352 nm over the same concentration range as (D(1) ) spectrophotometric method, with mean percentage recovery 100.09 ± 0.912. The third method is a TLC-densitometric one, where DIA was separated from its degradate on silica gel plates using ethyl acetate:methanol:chloroform (8:1.5:0.5 v:v:v) as a developing system. This method depends on quantitative densitometric evaluation of thin layer chromatogram of DIA at 340 nm over a concentration range of 1-10 µg/spot, with mean percentage recovery 100.24 ± 1.412. The selectivity of the proposed methods was tested using laboratory-prepared mixtures. The proposed methods have been successfully applied to the analysis of DIA in pharmaceutical dosage forms without interference from other dosage form additives and the results were statistically compared with reference method.