Simultaneous determination of ticarcillin and clavulanate in rabbit serum and tissue cage fluid by liquid chromatography

A gradient elution HPLC method with a wavelength switch technique was developed to simultaneously analyze the beta-lactam ticarcillin and the beta-lactamase inhibitor clavulanate in rabbit serum and tissue cage fluid (TCF). A C18 reversed-phase column with a programmable UV detector changing the wavelength from 218 to 254 nm at 9 min was used for chromatographic separation. The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile, phosphate buffer and tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate by following a gradient elution program at a flow-rate of 1 ml/min. Sample processing was carried out with liquid-liquid extraction. Good linearity, recoveries, precision and accuracy were obtained. The ranges of the standard curves were 1-100 mug/ml for ticarcillin, and 0.2-20 mug/ml for clavulanate. This assay has been successfully applied to analyze ticarcillin and clavulanate in rabbit serum and tissue cage fluid samples from a pharmacokinetic study. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.