Abstract

Background: Capecitabine is an orally available prodrug of 5-flurouracil used in the treatment of breast cancer, metastatic colorectal cancer and stage III colorectal cancer. Various studies have reported the HPLC, HPLC-MS, MS/MS methods for estimation of capecitabine. However, till date HPTLC method for estimation of capecitabine and its validation is not reported in tablet dosage form.

Introduction: Presented study deals with the development and validation of stability indicating high performance thin layer chromatography method for the determination of Capecitabine in tablet dosage form.

Methods: The method was developed using precoated HPTLC plates with silica gel 60 F254 as stationary phase and toluene-methanol the ratio of 7.5:2.5 v/v as the mobile phase. Capecitabine (RF 0.48 ± 0.03) and its degradation products were well resolved. The wavelength selected for study was 240 nm. The method was linear in the concentration range 50–550 ng/band with a correlation coefficient of 0.994. The repeatability for six samples was 1.25% RSD. The intraday and interday precisions were 1.46-1.71%RSD and 1.31-1.67% RSD, respectively. The accuracy (recovery) was found to be in the range of 99.10-101.23% with LOD and LOQ were found to be 0.650 and 1.765 mg/band. The mean content of drug in tablet dosage form was found to be 101.51% with a % RSD of 1.20. The drug was subjected to stress conditions such as hydrolysis, oxidation, photolysis, and heat.

Results: Degradation products produced as a result of the stress conditions did not interfere with the detection of Capecitabine; therefore, the proposed technique can be considered stability-indicating. Capecitabine did not degrade under thermal and photolytic conditions but showed degradation under acidic and alkaline conditions with 15 and 11% decompositions respectively.

Conclusion: The developed method was found to be facile, simple, specific, precise, and stabilityindicating. It can be employed for the routine analysis of capecitabine in tablet dosage form.

Keywords: Capecitabine, prodrug, high-performance thin-layer chromatography, stability-indicating stress degradation, tablet dosage, anticancer drug.