Milk thistle standard solution
Dissolve an accurately weighed quantity of
USP Powdered Milk Thistle Extract RSin methanol,sonicate for 20minutes,and dilute with methanol to obtain a solution having a known concentration of about 0.7mg of extract per mL.
Test solution
Transfer an accurately weighed amount of Powdered Extract,equivalent to about 40mg of silymarin,to a 100-mLvolumetric flask.Add 70mLof methanol,and sonicate for 20minutes.Cool at 20

,and dilute with methanol to volume.Pass through a membrane filter having a 0.45-µm or finer porosity.
Procedure
Separately inject equal volumes (about 10µL)of the
Milk thistle standard solution,each of the
Silybin standard solutions,and the
Test solutioninto the chromatograph,and record the chromatograms.Identify the peaks due to silychristin,silydianin,silybin A,silybin B,isosilybin A,and isolybin Bby comparison with the chromatogram of the
Milk thistle standard solution,and measure the peak areas of the relevant peaks.Plot the areas of the sum of silybin Aand silybin Bpeaks versus the concentration of
USP Silybin RSin the
Silybin standard solutions,and obtain a regression line for calibration.Separately calculate the percentage of each relevant component of silymarin as silybin (C
25H
22O
10)in the portion of Powdered Extract taken by the formula:
10,000(C/W),
in which
Cis the concentration,in mg per mL,of the relevant component in the
Test solutionas interpolated from the calibration graph;and
Wis the weight,in mg,of the portion of Powdered Extract taken.Calculate the content of silymarin,in percentage,in the portion of Powdered Extract taken by adding the individual percentages.