Study of Various Physical Parameters of Marketed Products of Paracetamol

The objective of this study was to compare various physical parameters of four different marketed brands of Paracetamol 500mg uncoated tablets and to verify the compliance of these physical parameters with respect to the standards as per Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP).The pre-requisite is that uncoated tablets should be free of dust without presence of any black particles and better tablet finish. Four brands of Paracetamol tablets manufactured by different manufacturers and but with similar primary package i.e. tablets packed in Blister were chosen and labelled as Brand A, B, C and D respectively. The tablets were randomly purchased from pharmacy outlets. The tablets were subjected to various physical evaluation tests like tablet appearance or description, weight variation, hardness, dissolution, disintegration time and friability. After performing the tests and comparing the results obtained, it was observed that all the four brands of Paracetamol tablets passed the Quality Control (QC) tests as per IP. However, the brands B and C showed poor physical appearance with observations like presence of dust, poor finishing, few chipped edges etc as compared to brands A and D. Among the brands A and D, brand D showed better results in terms of tablet appearance or description, weight variation, hardness, dissolution, disintegration time and friability. Thus brand D is concluded as best brand among four selected brands. The above said defects can be avoided by having strong in-process Quality Assurance personnel in the shop floor during manufacturing activity. A thorough monitoring system will avoid these observations and customer shall get a best tablet for medication.