Ivermectin: A Critical Review on Characteristics, Properties, and Analytical Methods

Ivermectin is one of the first, safe, broad-spectrum avermectin class of antiparasitic agent, widely used to control parasitic growth in livestock. Ivermectin being highly lipophilic accumulates in fat tissues, causing its long-term existence in the body. Accordingly, ivermectin residues are observed in various animal products such as milk and meat presenting several health hazards. Therefore, monitoring of ivermectin residue levels in the various food products of animal origin is greatly important to ensure the safety of consumers. This review could be of significant importance in the area of ivermectin analytical method development studies.

In this context, objective of the present work is to provide a critical review of analytical methods in the literature for detection and quantification of ivermectin in pharmaceutical formulations, and biological materials including animal tissues.

The data from analysis of accessible literature within the time span of 1980 to 2022 was selected.

Several analytical methods based on HPLC-fluorescence detector, UV-diode array detector, HPLC-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), ultra-performance liquid chromatography-MS/MS, and capillary electrophoresis techniques have been utilized for the simultaneous determination of ivermectin singly or in the presence of other drugs with realistic retention times. Several derivatization strategies were used to introduce a fluorophore followed by extraction into organic phase to remove the matrix interferences and enhance the sensitivity by pre-concentration. Methods such as HPLC linked to MS/MS were developed to lower the detection limit and quantification limit, with no requirement for derivatization.

More simple, selective, fast, sensitive, and green chemistry-oriented methods for ivermectin analysis need to be developed. Novel analytical devices based on pulsed electrochemical methods, voltammetry, and amperometry can be developed for real-time analysis of ivermectin, in addition to biosensors based on nanotechnology including quantum dots and nanoparticles, etc.

Various methods are described in the review including HPLC techniques with UV or visible spectrophotometric, fluorescence, and mass spectrometric detection, capillary electrophoresis, and immunological methods.