A comparative study between three stability indicating spectrophotometric methods for the determination of diatrizoate sodium in presence of its cytotoxic degradation product based on two-wavelength selection

•A comparative study involving three stability indicating spectrophotometric methods.•The three methods are based on measuring at two wavelengths.•No need for sophisticated instruments or preliminary separation steps.•Simple, inexpensive, and applicable methods for quality control laboratories.

Three sensitive, selective, and precise stability indicating spectrophotometric methods for the determination of the X-ray contrast agent, diatrizoate sodium (DTA) in the presence of its acidic degradation product (highly cytotoxic 3,5-diamino metabolite) and in pharmaceutical formulation, were developed and validated. The first method is ratio difference, the second one is the bivariate method, and the third one is the dual wavelength method. The calibration curves for the three proposed methods are linear over a concentration range of 2–24 μg/mL. The selectivity of the proposed methods was tested using laboratory prepared mixtures. The proposed methods have been successfully applied to the analysis of DTA in pharmaceutical dosage forms without interference from other dosage form additives. The results were statistically compared with the official US pharmacopeial method. No significant difference for either accuracy or precision was observed.

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