Rapid discrimination and determination of antibiotics drugs in plastic syringes using near infrared spectroscopy with chemometric analysis: Application to amoxicillin and penicillin

The aim of this study was to investigate near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) combined to chemometric analysis to discriminate and quantify three antibiotics by direct measurement in plastic syringes.Solutions of benzylpenicillin (PENI), amoxicillin (AMOX) and amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (AMOX/CLAV) were analyzed at therapeutic concentrations in glass vials and plastic syringes with NIR spectrometer by direct measurement. Chemometric analysis using partial least squares regression and discriminative analysis was conducted to develop qualitative and quantitative calibration models. Discrimination of the three antibiotics was optimal for concentrated solutions with 100% of accuracy. For quantitative analysis, the three antibiotics furnished a linear response (R²>0.9994) for concentrations ranging from 0.05 to 0.2 g/mL for AMOX, 0.1 to 1.0 MUI/mL for PENI and 0.005 to 0.05 g/mL for AMOX/CLAV with excellent repeatability (maximum 1.3%) and intermediate precision (maximum of 3.2%). Based on proposed models, 94.4% of analyzed AMOX syringes, 80.0% of AMOX/CLAV syringes and 85.7% of PENI syringes were compliant with a relative error including the limit of ± 15%.NIRS as rapid, non-invasive and non-destructive analytical method represents a potentially powerful tool to further develop for securing the drug administration circuit of healthcare institutions to ensure that patients receive the correct product at the right dose.