Simultaneous determination of thiabendazole and mebendazole in tablets by high-performance liquid chromatography

Reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography using an RP 18 column (4 x 125 mm), tetrahydrofuran-acetonitrile-0.5% formic acid (5:25:70, v/v/v) as mobile phase and UV detection at 254 nm enabled the simultaneous determination of thiabendazole (TZ) and mebendazole (MZ) in tablets. The method showed linearity over 4.0 to 40.0 micrograms TZ/ml and 6.0 to 60.0 micrograms MZ/ml. The correlation coefficient r was .9999 for both TZ and MZ. The coefficient of variation (CV) was 0.59-0.80% for TZ and 0.49-0.67% for MZ. The average recovery was 100.54-101.17% for TZ and 100.35-101.13% for MZ. The excipients of the tablets did not interfere in the proposed method. The developed method is precise, accurate, and selective for the determination of both benzimidazoles analyzed.