Recebido em 26/10/10; aceito em 30/1/11; publicado na web em 1/4/11 Three simple, sensitive, economical and reproducible spectrophotometric methods (A, B and C) are described for determination of mesalamine in pure drug as well as in tablet dosage forms. Method A is based on the reduction of tungstate and/or molybdate in Folin Ciocalteu's reagent; method B describes the reaction between the diazotized drug and α-naphthol and method C is based on the reaction of the drug with vanillin, in acidic medium. Under optimum conditions, mesalamine could be quantified in the concentration ranges, 1-30, 1-15 and 2-30 µg mL -1 by method A, B and C, respectively. All the methods have been applied to the determination of mesalamine in tablet dosage forms. Results of analysis are validated statistically.