Assessment of hand-held Raman instrumentation for in situ screening for potentially counterfeit artesunate antimalarial tablets by FT-Raman spectroscopy and direct ionization mass spectrometry

Anal Chim Acta. 2008 Aug 15;623(2):178-86. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2008.06.007. Epub 2008 Jun 13.

Abstract

Pharmaceutical counterfeiting has become a significant public health problem worldwide and new, rapid, user-friendly, reliable and inexpensive methods for drug quality screening are needed. This work illustrates the chemical characterization of genuine and fake artesunate antimalarial tablets by portable Raman spectroscopy and validation by FT-Raman spectroscopy and ambient mass spectrometry. The applicability of a compact and robust portable Raman spectrometer (TruScan) for the in situ chemical identification of counterfeit tablets is reported.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Antimalarials / analysis*
  • Artemisinins / analysis*
  • Artesunate
  • Fourier Analysis*
  • Fraud*
  • Mass Spectrometry / methods*
  • Quality Control
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Spectrum Analysis, Raman / instrumentation*
  • Tablets

Substances

  • Antimalarials
  • Artemisinins
  • Tablets
  • Artesunate