Spectrofluorimetric study of the β-cyclodextrin-ibuprofen complex and determination of ibuprofen in pharmaceutical preparations and serum

The inclusion complexation of ibuprofen in beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD) has been examined by means of spectrofluorimetry at both acid and alkaline pH. The results suggest that stable 1: 1 complexes are formed in both media. The analysis of the pK(a) values for ibuprofen in both the absence and presence of beta-CD (4.12 and 4.66, respectively) suggests that in the inclusion complex the carboxylic group is located outside the cyclodextrin (CD) but interacting with it. Further structural characterization of the complex was carried out by means Of AM I semiempiral calculations. Based on the obtained results, a spectrofluorimetric method for the determination of ibuprofen in the presence of beta-CD at 10 degreesC was developed in the range of 4.7-58 mug ml(-1). Better limits of detection (1.6 mug ml(-1)) and quantification (4.7 mug ml(-1)) were obtained in this latter case with respect to those obtained in the absence of beta-CD. The method was satisfactorily applied to the quantification of ibuprofen in pharmaceutical preparations. A novel spectrofluorimetric determination of ibuprofen in the presence of beta-CD was also developed for serum samples at concentration levels between 5 and 70 mug ml(-1). It uses second-order fluorescence excitation-emission matrices coupled to an algorithm based on self-weighted alternating trilinear decomposition (SWATLD), and avoids resorting to separative instrumental analyses. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.