Tablet splitting: implications in clonazepam dose adjustment?

• Autor(a) principal: Eserian, Jaqueline Kalleian
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Lombardo, Márcia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Saúde (Santa Maria)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsm.br/revistasaude/article/view/28841
• topic: tablets; clonazepam; dosage; comprimidos; clonazepam; dosagem

Tablet splitting is particularly interesting for dose tapering and slow dose titration, especially in psychiatric and geriatric communities. The objective of this study was to investigate the accuracy and precision of splitting clonazepam tablets using a kitchen knife and a commercially available tablet splitter. Whole tablets and split portions were individually weighed to determine weight variation and weight loss. Despite an accurate splitting (mean percentage close to 100%), precision analysis indicated a high variability in half-tablets weight (RSD>6%), ranging around ± 25% for tablet splitter and ± 18% for kitchen knife. There was no significant difference between the splitting techniques used to divide the tablets for both accuracy and weight loss. These preliminary findings indicate that splitting clonazepam tablets either by tablet splitter or kitchen knife might result in an apparent accurate splitting, in spite of the lack of precision between split portions. Future research is needed to investigate if such variations in clonazepam daily drug doses would result in clinical outcomes compromising dose adjustment schedules.