Retinoic acid (RA) has been used in the treatment of severe acne, wrinkles and cellulite. However, it induces skin irritation and rapidly suffers degradation under light and high temperate exposure. Rapid analytical methods to quantify retinoic acid are therefore mandatory for in vitro drug release studies. In this framework, the aim of this study was to develop and validate a rapid and responsive method to quantify the RA in microcapsules of chitosan and alginate containing babassu oil dispersed in natrosol® hydrogel using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Furthermore this method was used to quantify in vitro release kinetics of RA from microcapsules. The analyses have been carried through an isocratic HPLC-UV method using a reversed phase 150 x 4.6 mm C18 (5μm) column, a mobile phase constituted of methanol and 1% acetic acid (85:15) at a flow rate of 1.8 mL/min and detection at 350 nm. The linearity range was 0.5-60 μg/mL (r² = 0.999). The validated HPLC-UV method was responsive, specific, accurate, precise, and economic and the RA retention time was 5.8 ± 0.4 minutes, being therefore, faster than that previously reported.
High performance liquid chromatography; Spectroscopy; Retinoic acid; Microcapsules; Pharmaceutical formulations
