Chromatographic Fingerprint Analysis is Feasible for Comprehensive Quality Control of Taohongsiwu

Background and Objective: Taohongsiwu decoction, a traditional Chinese medicine formula has been widely developed to treat thrombotic diseases for hundreds of years. It contains variations of multi-components, which pose a serious challenge to its quality control. This study aimed to develop a simple and reliable ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector method to separate and detect the constituents of the decoction. Materials and Methods: A total of 15 compounds was detected and 6 compounds (including ferulic acid, hydroxysafflor yellow a, ligustilide, amygdalin, 5-hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde and paeoniflorin) were tentatively identified, using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector method. Results: The four components (Ferulic acid, hydroxysafflor yellow a, ligustilide, amygdalin) showed good regression (R>0.9996) within test ranges and the recovery method ranged from 101.73-106.44%. Ten batches of taohongsiwu decoction were analyzed. The similarity scores of common peaks from these samples ranged from 0.957-1.000, which indicating that samples were highly correlated. Conclusion: It is concluded that this extraction method was found to be sensitive and simple, so it was feasible for comprehensive quality control of THSWD.