• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.171-177
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• 1991

A reverse-phase, ion-pair high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the simultaneous quantative determination of pyridostigmine and its hydrolytic product, 3-hydroxy-N-methylpyridinium (HMP), is descrihed, The assay of pyridostigmine and HMP was linear in the range of amount from 24 to 60 mg/tablet and from 2.4 to 12.0 mg/tablet, respectively, with coefficient of variation (C.V.) of 0.05-0.12% (n=7) and 0.25-0.52% (n=5), respectively, and applicable conveniently even in the case of the mixture of pyridostigmine and HMP. Meanwhile, the conventional UV method gave inaccurate results for the aged pyridostigmine tablets. In the extraction of pyridostigmine from tablets prior to be assayed by HPLC, methanol was found to be more effective than ethanol or distilled water. Multiple extraction (four times) with methanol resulted in the full recovery of pyridostigmine, whereas ethanol gave 95% recovery even after four times extraction. Based on these results. the present method would be very useful for the accurate determination of pyridostigmine in the aged pyridostigmine tablets.