Simultaneous determination of cyproterone acetate and ethinylestradiol in tablets by derivative spectrophotometry

Derivative spectrophotometry offers a useful approach for the analysis of drugs in multi-component mixtures. In this study a third-derivative spectrophotometric method was used for simultaneous determination of cyproterone acetate and ethinylestradiol using the zero-crossing technique. The measurements were carried out at wavelengths of 316 and 226 nm for cyproterone acetate and ethinylestradiol respectively. The method was found to be linear (r2>0.999) in the range of 0.5-6 mg/100 ml for cyproterone acetate in the presence of 35 microg/100 ml ethinylestsradiol at 316 nm. The same linear correlation (r2>0.999) was obtained in the range of 10-80 microg/100 ml of ethinylestradiol in the presence of 2 mg/100 ml of cyproterone acetate at 226 nm. The limit of determination was 0.5 mg/100 ml and 10 microg/100 ml for cyproterone acetate and ethinylestradiol respectively. The method was successfully applied for simultaneous determination of cyproterone acetate and ethinylestradiol in pharmaceutical preparations without any interferences from excipients.