A simple, fast and reliable reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed for the assay of lidocaine hydrochloride (LH) in Gantrez-alginate microspheres. Separation was achieved in a LiChrospher C18 column, using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile:ammonium acetate (0.0257 M) adjusted to pH 4.85 with acetic acid, in the ratio 70:30 (v/v) and a flow rate of 0.6 mL/min. The detection was made with a diode array detector measuring at the maximum for the compound. The validation study demonstrated that the method was precise, accurate and linear over the concentration range of analysis with a limit of detection of 0.001 mg/mL. The limit of quantification was 0.002 mg/mL. Linear regression analysis in the range of 0.8-2.4 mg/mL gave correlation coefficients higher than 0.995. The method developed was applied to the analysis of lidocaine in microsphere samples in order to evaluate in next papers, the encapsulation efficiency of different formulations.