Investigation of the Stability of Doxorubicin Hydrochloride Using Factorial Design

Using drug concentration remaining at a given time as the criterion, a 24x3 factorial design has been employed to investigate the effects of temperature, light, media (aqueous or organic/aqueous), ionic strength and pH on the stability of doxorubicin hydrochloride. Following the application of first order kinetics, and assuming an additive model, the statistical significance of the factors and their interactions have been determined using analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the dependent variable ln(lnCo-InC). The results indicate that temperature, pH and media are the major factors responsible for the stability of drug. The two-way interaction between temperature and pH, and the three-way interaction between temperature, light and ionic strength are also significant. It is found that doxorubicin is more stable in non-aqueous media at low temperature and low pH values. A combination of darkness and low ionic strength is also conducive to its stability.