Abstract
Atorvastatin calcium is a synthetic HMGCoA reductase inhibitor that is used as a cholesterol-lowering agent. A simple, sensitive, selective, and precise RP-HPTLCdensitometric determination of atorvastatin calcium both as bulk drug and from pharmaceutical formulation was developed and validated according to International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. The method used aluminum sheets precoated with silica gel 60 RP18F254s as the stationary phase, and the mobile phase consisted of methanolwater (3.5 + 1.5, v/v). The system gave a compact band for atorvastatin calcium with an Rf value of 0.62 0.02. Densitometric quantification was carried out at 246 nm. The linear regression analysis data for the calibration plots showed a good linear relationship with r = 0.9992 in the working concentration range of 100-800 ng/band. The method was validated for precision, accuracy, ruggedness, robustness, specificity, recovery, LOD, and LOQ. The LOD and LOQ were 6 and 18 ng, respectively. The drug underwent hydrolysis when subjected to acidic conditions and was found to be stable under alkali, oxidation, dry heat, and photodegradation conditions. Statistical analysis proved that the developed RP-HPTLCdensitometry method is reproducible and selective and that it can be applied for identification and quantitative determination of atorvastatin calcium in bulk drug and tablet formulation.