Application and equivalence assessment for determining ethamsylate by using potassium ferricyanide as spectroscopic probe reagent.

In this paper, a novel method has been established to determine ethamsylate using potassium ferricyanide as a spectroscopic probe reagent. It has been demonstrated that Fe(III) is reduced to Fe(II) by ethamsylate, and that the formed Fe(II) reacts with potassium ferricyanide to form soluble prussian blue (KFe(III)[Fe(II)(CN)(6)]). Beer's law is obeyed in the range of 0.16 - 24.00 µg mL(-1) with the molar absorption coefficient of 2.1 × 10(4) L mol(-1) cm(-1). The detection limit (3 σ/k) is 0.11 µg mL(-1). This method has been successfully applied to determine ethamsylate in pharmaceutical and serum samples with satisfactory results, and presented quite satisfactory credibility during method equivalence assessment.