Comparative in-vitro Evaluation of Carbamazepine 200mg Tablets

Carbamazepine (CBZ) is widely used as an antiepileptic drug, primarily for the treatment of partial and tonic-clonic seizures. Bipolar disorder can be treated by this medicine it also can be used in treatment of neurological pain and trigeminal neuralgia. The drug is absorbed slowly and has irregular gastrointestinal absorption after oral administration due to its limited water solubility. The main purpose of the present study was to compare pharmaceutical quality of different Carbamazepine 200mg tablets dispensed in Tripoli pharmacies, The physicochemical equivalence of five different Carbamazepine 200mg tablets was investigated through the evaluation of the uniformity of weight, thickness, diameter, friability, hardness, disintegration time, drug content as well as dissolution rate. The results of all the five brands of Carbamazepine 200mg tablets passed the official tests as prescribed by the pharmacopoeia standards including uniformity of weight, thickness, hardness, friability, disintegration time, drug content as well as dissolution rate. Acceptable external features as well as uniformity in diameter and thickness revealed for all the tablets. The entire brands complied with the official specifications for uniformity of weight where no tablet showed a deviation more than ?5%. Brand B had the highest crushing strength while brand D had the highest disintegration time compared to the other brands. All the brands had values within the range specified for friability and assay in the USP. The dissolution profiles showed that none of the brands had dissolution less than 75% within 60 minutes. The entire brands evaluated in this study could be considered bioequivalence, therefore it can be interchanged in clinical practice, and the patient can be safety switch from one brand to another. This sort of study is good indicator for the evaluation of the idealness of commercial products.