Analysis of histamine and sisomicin in gentamicin: Search for the causative agents of adverse effects

The quality of drugs and drug products - Always guaranteed?

To ensure the efficacy, safety, and quality of drugs, several national and international guidelines and regulatory requirements exist. The most important international regulatory framework for quality is the collection of the guidelines ICH Q1-Q14 (International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use), which form the basis for the development and approval of medicinal products. Additionally, international and national pharmacopoeias and national regulatory authorities like Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Directory for the Quality of Medicines and HealthCare (EDQM) have to be considered during the lifecycle of a drug. Further, regular updates and optimization of processes and methods together with periodic audits and inspections of the manufacturing plants help to ensure compliance with the complex regulatory requirements for medicinal products. Although the pharmaceutical world seems to be very well regulated and controlled, several drug recalls per year have to be announced and conducted to remove defect products from the market and protect the patient from any potential health risk. This review article provides an overview of the most common reasons for such recalls presenting several historical and current cases with a detailed discussion of root causes. A specific focus lies on quality issues like drug degradation, impurity and nitrosamine contamination, lack of drug stability, occurrence and transformation of polymorphs, contamination with particulates and foreign matters, amongst others. The role of APIs, excipients and packaging will be discussed as well as the analytical challenges to detect, control and mitigate such quality issues. A final chapter will discuss the current situation and an outlook on emerging topics and future challenges for drug quality.

A selective dual quenching sensor (EY/BG@CDs) for simultaneous monitoring of gentamicin and ketorolac levels in plasma: a highly efficient platform that caters to the needs of therapeutic drug monitoring

This research work introduces a novel sensor that utilizes two fluorophores to enable simultaneous monitoring of gentamicin sulphate (GNT) and ketorolac tromethamine (KET). The innovative sensor is composed of carbon dots (CDs) derived from black grapes (BG) and eosin Y (EY) dye. The interaction between the studied drugs and EY/BG@CDs sensor components allows for their simultaneous detection where GNT quenches the fluorescence of EY at 535 nm without affecting the fluorescence of CDs, while KET quenches the fluorescence of BG@CDs at 385 nm without impacting EY fluorescence. The BG@CDs probe was successfully characterized using various techniques such as absorption spectrophotometry, spectrofluorimetry, TEM imaging, infrared spectroscopic analysis, and XRD analysis. The suggested methodology was observed to be highly sensitive for the simultaneous determination of GNT and KET in their spiked rabbit plasma samples, with wide linear ranges and low limit of detection (LOD) values. The studied drugs were extracted using a highly selective extraction method involving protein precipitation followed by mixed mode solid phase extraction using an Oasis WCX cartridge. The simultaneous determination of GNT and KET is essential due to the potential interactions between the studied drugs. Therefore, this analysis can be used to evaluate the necessity of dose monitoring and the potential adverse effects of co-administration of these drugs.