Development of an ultraviolet spectrophotometric method for the determination of ceftiofur sodium powder

A UV spectrophotometric method was developed for determination of ceftiofur sodium in the drug substance and sterile powder for injection. The method validation, which yielded good results, included evaluation of the range, linearity, intra- and interday precision, accuracy, recovery, specificity, robustness, LOQ, and LOD. The UV spectrophotometric determinations were performed at 292 nm. Good linearity was obtained between 2.5 and 20.0 microg/mL. A prospective validation showed that the method is linear (r = 0.9999) and precise, with RSD values of 0.3% for product A and 0.4% for product B. The intra- and interday precision values were < 2% for all samples analyzed. Comparison of UV spectrophotometry and LC by analysis of variance and Student's t-test showed no significant difference between methodologies. Moreover, the accuracy and precision obtained with the UV method correlated well with the values obtained with the LC method, and this correlation suggests that UV spectrophotometric analysis can be an inexpensive, reliable, and less time-consuming alternative to chromatographic analysis. The results demonstrated the validity of the proposed method as a simple and useful alternative for the determination of ceftiofur in routine QC analyses.