초록
Aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid, a member of the salicylate family, is frequently used as an analgesic, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory and antiplatelet drug. Because aspirin is chemically unstable in water and heat for tablet formulation, additives including lubricants are used in preparing aspirin tablets, using a dry-granulation process. Aspirin tablets are produced by a number of manufacturers which usually use their own unique combination of additives during the manufacturing process. In this study, we employed an NMR based metabolomics technique to identify the manufacturers of various aspirin tablets. Aspirin tablets from six different companies were analyzed by 1H 400 MHz NMR. The acquired data was then integrated and processed by principal component analysis (PCA). Based on the NMR data, we were able to identify peaks corresponding to acetylsalicylic acid in all of the six samples, whereas different NMR patterns were found in the aromatic and aliphatic regions depending on the unique additive used. These observations led to the conclusion that the differences in the NMR patterns among the different aspirin tablets were due to the presence of additives.