Tow simple, rapid and sensitive spectrophotometric methods for the determination of mesalazine in pharmaceutical preparations have been carried out. The proposed methods depend on oxidative coupling reaction of mesalazine with m-aminophenol in the existence of N-bromosuccinamide in alkaline medium (method A) and 2,6-dihydroxybenzoic acid in the existence of sodium metaperiodate in basic medium (method B) to produce colored products , show highest absorptions at 640 (nm) and 515 (nm), alternately. Beer’s law was consistent in concentrations extent of 1.25-30 and 0.5-12.5 (µg.mL-1) with molar absorptivity of 0.36×104 and 0.77×104 L.mol-1.cm-1, alternately. The limits of detection (LOD) were 0.0144 and 0.0829 µg.mL-1, while limits of quantitation (LOQ) were 0.0483 and 0.2766 (µg.mL-1), alternately. The suggested methods have been applied successfully to the determination of mesalazine in its pharmaceutical preparations as tablets and suppositories.
