Kinetic spectrophotometric determination of josamycin in formulations and spiked human plasma using 3-methylbenzothiazolin-2-one hydrazone/Fe+3 system.

A simple kinetic spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of josamycin in its dosage forms and spiked human plasma. The method is based on reaction of the drug with 3-methylbenzothiazolin-2-one hydrazone/ferric chloride system for a fixed time of 20 min at 70 degrees C and measuring the produced color at 665 nm. The absorbance-concentration plot is rectilinear over the range of 5.0-30.0 microg/mL with detection limit of 1.0 microg/mL (1.2 x 10(-6) M). The determination of josamycin by the fixed concentration and the rate-constant methods is also feasible with the calibration equations obtained, but the fixed-time method proved to be more applicable. The procedure was successfully applied to commercial tablets. The results obtained were favorably compared with those given by reference methods. The method was further extended to the in vitro determination of josamycin in spiked human plasma. The recovery (n = 8) was 100.76 +/- 3.43%. The stoichiometry of the reaction between the drug and the reagent was studied by adopting the limiting logarithmic method, and a proposal of the reaction pathway was presented.