ABSTRACT
Introduction: The stability is an essential factor of safety, quality and efficacy of drugs products. It is a primary concern in climates with extreme temperatures.
Objectives: This experiment was to investigate the effect of temperature and humidity on some brands of metronidazole tablet in their original packs.
Methods: Tablets were subjected to room temperature
(25°C) on the table top, fridge (4°C) and Oven (40°) and humidity of 0%(using silical gel), 78% for(sodium chloride) and 100% for 6 weeks, changes in the physicochemical property was determined by hardness, friability, disintegration, dissolution and drug content tests.
Results: The results were compared after 6weeks storage, and study shows that pharmaceutical properties of the metronidazole tablet can be compromised by the influence of storage conditions. In previous study conducted in testing metronidazole tablets marketed in Zaria, Nigeria, it was reported that only 60% of the tested tablets of metronidazole passed the stability quality control test. (Ibezim et al., 2008 ;Wu et al., 2005).While comparing brands, brand A showed much better profile in terms of disintegration, hardness, content and dissolution, when compared with brand B and brand C.
Conclusion: Room temperature and at appropriate humidity is required to ensure the, quality safety and efficacy of metronidazole tablets and to preserve tablets throughout its shelf-life.
