[Evaluation of the therapeutic effect of oral gabapentin on the severity of acute low back pain]

Acute low back pain is one of the most common complaints of the patients seeking medical advice. Nowadays various drugs are recommended for the treatment of this problem. Selection of appropriate medications with high efficacy and minimal side effects has always been a challenging issue in medical treatments. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of oral gabapantin on pain intensity in patients with acute low back pain. This double-blind clinical trial study included 100 patients with acute low back pain who had referred to the treatment centers affiliated with Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences in 2011-2012.Using convenient sampling method the patients were randomly assigned to intervention [n50] and control [n=50] groups. Intervention group received two 500 mg naproxen tablets and two 100 mg gabapantin tablets/ day and control group, received two 500 mg naproxen tablets and two placebo tablets/ day. The patients were examined for pain intensity based on visual analogue scale and the rate of complications on the days of 0, 8, 15, and 30.Using SPSS software, data analysis was performed by descriptive and inferential statistics. In this study, mean pain score was significantly lower in the intervention group compared to the control group [p<0.05]. Also, the women in the intervention group had a lower mean pain score on all 3 examinations-compared to the women in the control group. But no statistically significant difference was observed in pain intensity between the men in the intervention and control groups. In this study, pain significantly relieved in the patients in the intervention group compared to those in the control group. It seems that use of gabapantin in addition to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs] is more effective than NSAIDs alone in reducing the pain intensity

[Drug release evaluation of ibuprofen sugar coated and film coated tablets marketed in Iran]

Ibuprofen is one of the safest and most potent non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents available in the market. Its oral dosage forms available in Iranian market are sugar-coated tablet, film coated tablet and suspension as well. However, the tablets suffer from potential bioinequivalance problem, the limited aqueous solubility, gastrointestinal side effects and hardening of the tablets on aging. Sugar coated and film coated tablets of ibuprofen were examined in terms of dissolution equivalency and compared with a standard brand tablet [Nurofen]. The physicochemical characteristics e.g. hardness, friability, assay, disintegration time and content uniformity of coated and uncoated tablets were determined. Dissolution testing was done by rotating basket method in various dissolution media including distilled water, phosphate buffer and HCl 0.1 N. The amount of drug released during dissolution test was determined using spectrophotometer at [lamda]=221 nm. Content uniformity, hardness, friability, assay and disintegration time of both sugar coated and film coated tablets were in the acceptable pharmacopeias limits. The amount of drug released from Neurofen, sugar coated and film coated tablet in acidic media during a period of 30 min were 5%, 8% and 12%, respectively. Furthermore, both sugar and film coated tablets released 80% of their content after 20 minutes in phosphate buffer. The amount of ibuprofen released from Neurofen was completed [100%] during similar period of time. Although the release profiles of both sugar coated and film coated tablets are similar in phosphate buffer medium, however, sugar coated tablets release less amounts of drug in acidic medium something which indicates superiority of sugar coated relative to film coated one for ibuprofen tablets