Spectrofluorometric Determination of Citalopram in Pharmaceutical Preparations and Spiked Human Plasma Using Organized Media

The native fluorescence of citalopram (CIT) was (obtained in citrate buffer of pH 6.5 with and without β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) or sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as fluorescence enhancers at 305 nm using 242 nm for excitation. Micellar systems of ionic and nonionic surfactants were investigated by measuring the fluorescence intensity of the analyte-surfactant system. In slightly acidic aqueous solution of pH 6.5, CIT was better incorporated in CDs and SDS micelles. The luminescence emission from CIT was found to be greatly enhanced by SDS micelles. The fluorescence intensity enhancements in CDs medium and in SDS as ionic surfactant relative to slightly acidic aqueous solution were 125 and 250%, respectively. Organized media-enhanced spectroflourometric methods were developed for the determination of CIT, in pure form as well as in pharmaceutical preparations. The fluorescence intensity-concentration plots were rectilinear over the ranges 0.06 to 0.64, 0.04 to 0.40, and 0.02 to 0.26 μg/mL with lower detection limits of 0.02, 0.01, and 0.007 μg/mL, either in citrate buffer only or in β-CD and SDS as organized media, respectively. Furthermore, the high sensitivity attained by using SDS as organized medium allowed in vitro spectrofluorometric determination of CIT in spiked human plasma. Interference from endogenous amino acids has been overcome by using the solid-phase extraction technique; the mean recovery (n = 5) was 100.1 ± 0.8%