Skip to main content
Journal of Clinical Microbiology logoLink to Journal of Clinical Microbiology
. 1996 May;34(5):1321–1322. doi: 10.1128/jcm.34.5.1321-1322.1996

Stability of amoxicillin-clavulanate in BACTEC medium determined by high-performance liquid chromatography and bioassay.

T D Moore 1, R Horton 1, L J Utrup 1, L A Miller 1, J A Poupard 1
PMCID: PMC229010  PMID: 8727931

Abstract

The stabilities of amoxicillin (16 micrograms/ml) and clavulanate (8 micrograms/ml), alone and in combination in BACTEC medium (Middlebrook 7H12B medium), were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and bioassay. By HPLC, the half-life of amoxicillin (trihydrate and sodium) in combination with clavulanate in nonradiolabelled 7H12B medium was 6.7 days, whereas the half-life of clavulanate in combination with amoxicillin was 2.0 days. By bioassay, the half-lives of amoxicillin trihydrate and clavulanate in radiolabelled 7H12B medium were comparable (7 and 2 days, respectively) to those determined by HPLC. When clavulanate was tested alone, the half-life was determined to be 1.88 days by HPLC and 1.87 days by bioassay. The relatively short half-life of clavulanate can be adjusted by a procedure of "topping up," or adding one-half the concentration of clavulanate every second day, in order to allow accurate amoxicillin-clavulanate MIC testing with the BACTEC mycobacterial susceptibility system.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (167.6 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Foulstone M., Reading C. Assay of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid, the components of Augmentin, in biological fluids with high-performance liquid chromatography. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1982 Nov;22(5):753–762. doi: 10.1128/aac.22.5.753. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Lee C. N., Heifets L. B. Determination of minimal inhibitory concentrations of antituberculosis drugs by radiometric and conventional methods. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1987 Aug;136(2):349–352. doi: 10.1164/ajrccm/136.2.349. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Lee T. L., Brooks M. A. High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of amoxicillin in human plasma using a bonded-phase extraction. J Chromatogr. 1984 Mar 9;306:429–435. doi: 10.1016/s0378-4347(00)80911-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Watt B., Edwards J. R., Rayner A., Grindey A. J., Harris G. In vitro activity of meropenem and imipenem against mycobacteria: development of a daily antibiotic dosing schedule. Tuber Lung Dis. 1992 Jun;73(3):134–136. doi: 10.1016/0962-8479(92)90145-A. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Clinical Microbiology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES