Development of high performance liquid chromatography method for lacidipine in rabbit serum: application to pharmacokinetic study.

A simple and sensitive high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for quantification of lacidipine (LCDP) in rabbit serum was developed and validated. LCDP and internal standard (IS), felodipine were extracted into n-hexane and dichloromethane (70:30) solvent system and separated using an isocratic mobile phase, on an Inertsil C18 column. The effluent was monitored by UV detector at 240 nm and at a flow rate of 1.0 mL min(-1). The linearity range of proposed method was 1-500 ng mL(-1). The intra-day and inter-day coefficient of variation and percent error values of the assay method were less than 15% and mean recovery was more than 94 and 95% for LCDP and IS, respectively and the method was found to be precise, accurate, and specific during the study. The method was successfully applied for pharmacokinetic study of lacidipine after application of LCDP microemulsion gel in rabbits.