Development and validation of an HPLC-DAD method for the simultaneous quantification of 8 characteristic components in kakkonto decoction

[Abstract] A simple, efficient and reliable HPLC-DAD method for the simultaneous quantification of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, paeoniflorin, puerarin, glycyrrhizic acid, cinnamic acid, cinnamaldehyde and 6-gingerol in kakkonto decoction, a traditional herbal medicine, containing 7 crude drugs was developed and validated for the first time. The method was validated by determining the linearity, range, limit of detection, limit of quantification, precision, accuracy and specificity, and was successfully applied to the analysis of the 8 components in kakkonto decoction and the 5 components in maoto decoction which contains some of same crude drugs with kakkonto. This method can be applied to the routine study and quantification of the major characteristic components in kakkonto decoction. It may also be used for other traditional herbal medicine formulas which contain the same crude drugs or characteristic components studied in this paper.