Adjusting the dose in paediatric care by dispersing fragments of four different aspirin tablets.

<bold>Aim: </bold>Tablets can be manipulated in several ways to obtain a fraction as the dose-a practice frequently seen in paediatric care due to lack of suitable formulations. Splitting tablets prior to fragment dispersion in a small volume of liquid is one such method. The objective of this study was to investigate the accuracy and precision of this method.<bold>Methods: </bold>Four different types of aspirin tablets (two dispersible, one conventional and one chewing) were split with a tablet splitter into half and quarter fragments. The fragments were dispersed in a medicine measure or an oral syringe. The amount recovered was determined by UHPLC analysis.<bold>Results: </bold>The largest quarter fragments ranged from 26.7% to 31.5% of the full tablet weight. Dispersing the fragment in an oral syringe, the amount recovered was greater than 90.8% of the fragment manipulated for all four tablet types, when rinsing was performed. Dispersing the fragment in a medicine measure, the amounts recovered spanned from 32.9% for the conventional tablets to 98.7% for one of the dispersible tablets.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>Dispersion of half or quarter tablets directly in an oral syringe, but not a medicine measure, could give satisfactory recovery from fragments of all the investigated aspirin tablets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]