A highly sensitive, selective and accurate thin-layer chromatographic (TLC)-densitometric method has been developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of paracetamol (PAR) and chlorzoxazone (CZ) and their toxic impurities, 4-amino phenol (4AP) and 2-amino-4-chlorophenol (2ACP), respectively, which are also considered to be the hydrolytic degradation products and related substances of the studied drugs. A developing system consisting of chloroform-methanol-glacial acetic acid (9.5:0.5:0.25, by volume) was found to be sufficient for chromatographic separation among the four studied components using pre-activated silica gel 60 F254 TLC plates with ultraviolet detection at 225 nm. Calibration curves were constructed in the ranges of 0.3-3, 1-10, 0.06-3 and 0.04-3 µg/band for PAR, CZ, 4AP and 2ACP, respectively, using polynomial equations. The developed method was validated according to International Conference on Harmonization guidelines and demonstrated good accuracy and precision. Moreover, the method was successfully applied for the determination of PAR and CZ in different marketed samples and the results were statistically compared to those obtained by the reported reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method using F-test and Student's-t test. The low detection and quantitation limits of the developed method make it suitable for quality control and stability studies of PAR and CZ in different pharmaceutical formulations.
