Microbiological assay of ketoconazole in shampoo

Ketoconazole, an anti-fungal agent, is often incorporated in several pharmaceutical forms and in shampoo formulation it is known to be effective against fungal infection on the scalp. This paper describes a method to quantify ketoconazole in shampoo by comparing the cylinder plate assay and the HPLC method. The test organism used for the agar diffusion assay was Candida albicans ATCC 10231. Three different concentrations of ketoconazole were used for the diffusion assay. A mean zone diameter was obtained for each concentration. A standard curve was obtained by plotting the three values derived from the zone diameters. A prospective validation of the method showed that the method was linear (r = 0.9982), precise (R.S.D. = 2.57%) and accurate. The results obtained by the two methods were statistically evaluated by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the results obtained indicate that there is no significant difference between these two methods.