Isolation and quantitative determination of some cardioactive glycosides from Digitalis lanata by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A rapid extraction method followed by high-performance liquid chromatographic assay was developed for the quantitative determination of the cardioactive glycosides of Digitalis lanata. The leaf samples were extracted with water or aqueous alcohols. The simple extraction method gives a better yield than the methods described previously. Lanatoside C and its metabolites have been separated on a reversed-phase column with various mixtures of acetonitrile, methanol, and water as mobile phases for isocratic elution. Extraction and quantitative determination of lanatoside C and digoxin from a leaf sample require not more than 30 min.