Background: Cephalosporins are among the safest and the most effective broad-spectrum bactericidal antimicrobial agents which have been prescribed by the clinician as antibiotics. Thus, the developing of simple, sensitive and rapid analytical methods for their determination can be attractive and desirable. Methods: A simple, rapid and sensitive spectrofluorimetric method was developed for the determination of cefixime, cefalexin and ceftriaxone in pharmaceutical formulations. Proposed method is based on the oxidation of these cephalosporins with cerium (IV) to produce cerium (III), and its fluorescence was monitored at 356 ± 3 nm after excitation at 254 ± 3 nm. Results: The variables effecting oxidation of each cephalosporin with cerum (IV) were studied and optimized. Under the experimental conditions used, the calibration graphs were linear over the range 0.1-4 µg/mL. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were in the range 0.031-0.054 and 0.102-0.172 µg/mL, respectively. Intra- and inter-day assay precisions, expressed as the relative standard deviation (RSD), were lower than 5.6 and 6.8%, respectively. Conclusion: The proposed method was applied to the determination of studied cephalosporins in pharmaceutical formulations by good recoveries in the range 91-110%.

Keywords: Cefixime, Cefalexin, Ceftriaxone, Cerium(IV), Spectrofluorimetry, Pharmaceutical formulation