by
Blazer » Tue Nov 15, 2016 2:42 pm
Don't worry about that table you're looking at from USP <621> with respect to your system suitability requirements. Take a quick look at the paragraph above it:
"Replicate injections of a standard preparation or other standard solutions are compared to ascertain whether requirements for precision are met. Unless otherwise specified in the individual monograph, data from five replicate injections of the analyte are used to calculate the relative standard deviation, %RSD, if the requirement is 2.0% or less; data from six replicate injections
are used if the relative standard deviation requirement is more than 2.0%."
Again, this is specific guidance for USP monographs. Generally speaking you need to let your data drive this discussion. Justifications driven by data are fairly difficult to argue against. I presume your standard area of ~4339 is low because the standard is prepared at a fairly low concentration.
If your HPLC is well maintained, I don't see why a 2% RSD couldn't be achieved even at that area count, but again, let your data drive that discussion. If necessary, you may be able to justify a 3% RSD. Let's try a simple study: how many times have you run this method? What have been your RSDs to date? Have you tried this across different HPLCs (if available)?