The current study was carried out with an attempt to separate similarly structured title drugs by liquid chromatography. Spectrophotometric techniques were generally insufficient under these conditions because of the spectral overlapping of drugs with similar functional groups. The pharmaceutical drugs prazosin, terazosin, and doxazosin contain the same parent quinazoline nucleus, thus making it especially difficult to separate the former two drugs because of their very similar structures. A simple and sensitive method for the routine determination of these drugs in pharmaceutical formulations was attempted. We found that the mobile phase consisting of A: ACN-diethylamine (0.05 ml), B: methanol, and C: 10 mM Ammonium acetate separated these drugs effectively. Separations were carried out on a new Kromasil C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm, 5.0 μm) at 254 nm wavelength. The calibration curve was found to be linear in the range of 2-500 μg/ml. The stated method was then validated in terms of specificity, linearity, precision, and accuracy. Additionally, the proposed method reduced the duration of the analysis.
Keywords: Chromatography; Doxazosin; Method validation; Prazosin; Stress degradation; Terazosin; α1 Adrenoreceptor blockers.