COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CERTAIN COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE BRANDS OF PARACETAMOL TABLETS IN SANA'A CITY, YEMEN

Mahmoud Mahyoob Alburyhi, Abdalwali A. Saif, Maged Alwan Noman*, Moktar Algorafy

ABSTRACT

Evaluation of the physiochemical properties of the pharmaceutical products can ensure their quality as well as bioavailability and impart optimum therapeutic activity. In general, drugs must be marketed as safe and therapeutically active formulations whose performance is consistent and predictable. Acetaminophen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug frequently prescribed for relief of pain and fever. The present study was conducted to access the quality control parameters of nine different brands marketed in Yemen and compare weight variation, hardness, friability, and assessment of state content as prescribed in official monograph using acetaminophen standards. For weight variation, all the nine brands of paracetamol tested conformed to the BP weight variation test. For hardness the result show that all brands complied with the standard BB/USP specification for tablet hardness 4-10 kg/cm, except two brands fail, Paramol and Ramol. All brands showed impressive friability values and the products of multinational companies comparatively exhibited the highest values, all the brands of paracetamol tablets had passed friability specification and values of <1% which considered to be highly satisfactory according to BP/USP. All the nine brands of paracetamol shown their disintegration within 15 minutes as specified by BP/USP. For drug content, high-performance liquid chromatography was used to determine Paracetamol content, and all brands showed good chemical analysis profile which would further help in achieving optimum bioavailability and in fulfilling the patient demands.

Keywords: Paracetamol, hardness, friability, disintegration, market.