Flurbiprofen is clinically effective for the treatment of acute or long-term rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Studies showed that S-flurbiprofen had better anti-inflammatory effect than R-flurbiprofen. As flurbiprofen racemates are usually used in the form of transdermal preparations, such as Flurbiprofen Cataplasms (Zepolas), it is of great significance to investigate the percutaneous permeation profiles of flurbiprofen enantiomers for considering whether it is necessary to develop the transdermal preparation with single optical enantiomer. Taking the economy into consideration, the flurbiprofen enantiomers as the mode drug and the CHIRALPAKAAGP column we had as instrument were used to perform the following experiments. On the basis of experiences provided by predecessors, we made some improvements to the analytical conditions, and method validation was developed to verify the feasibility of the method. The results showed that the established method could be used to analyze the percutaneous permeation profiles of flurbiprofen enantiomers in the flurbiprofen cataplasms accurately and effectively, and the percutaneous permeation profiles of flurbiprofen enantiomers had no significantly difference no matter under what conditions (P > 0.05).
Keywords: R-flurbiprofen; S-flurbiprofen; chiral separation; percutaneous permeation profiles; α1-acid glycoprotein column.
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