Capillary zone electrophoretic separation and determination of imidazolic antifungal drugs

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) was adapted to the simultaneous determ ination of a mixture of three imidazolic antifungal drugs. Separation was a chieved by using a fused-silica capillary column with an acetic acid-Tris b uffer at pH 5.18 and UV detection at 196 nm. Several electrophoretic parame ters were investigated: pH and buffer concentration, applied voltage, tempe rature and injection conditions. The optimized CZE method was applied to th e individual determination of ketoconazole, clotrimazole and econazole in p harmaceutical forms, after a previous single extraction step in methanol, w ith recoveries of 98.00, 99.96 and 99.58% respectively. The antifungal drug s can be determined at a concentration level lower than 1.0 10(-7) M. (C) 2 000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.