The official method for the determination of the composition and related substances of gentamicin prescribed by the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) is liquid chromatography combined with pulsed electrochemical detection (LC-PED). However, this method utilizes a polymer stationary phase which shows rather low efficiency towards the separation of the main gentamicin components. Moreover, the mobile phase contains a lot of non volatile salts: sodium sulphate and sodium octanesulphonate. Following a comparative study, the most performant LC-PED method has been evaluated and validated using a reversed phase C18 column (C18, 250 x 4.6mm ID, 110 A, 5 microm) kept at 35 degrees C with a mobile phase containing volatile ion pairing agents: trifluoroacetic acetic acid (TFA) and pentafluoropropionic acid (PFPA). In addition to the selectivity of the main gentamicin components and its related substances, the method is repeatable, linear and proves to be robust. It is also applicable to a wider number of C18 columns.
