Quality Assurance of Fluoroquinolones in Commercial Pharmaceutical Formulations

Abstract

Fluoroquinolones are broad spectrum synthetic antibiotics and are used for the treatment of many types of systematic infections. The drugs given to the patient would not show the required result, if the appropriate amount is not available to the body. A total of forty nine commercial pharmaceutical formulations including Ciprofloxacin, Norfloxacin, Ofloxacin and Pefloxacin were analyzed by UV and colorimetric methods for their active ingredient. The results shows that 5 sample contained the higher amount as claimed, 3 samples contained the same amount while all remaining samples contained the lower amount as claimed by the manufacturers. The amount of fluroquinolone differ in the range of +12 to -11%. However, these amounts lie in the therapeutic window and will not affect their therapeutic action. The results obtained by the colorimetric method were comparable with the result of the UV spectrophotometric method.