Polymorphism incidence in commercial tablets of mebendazole: a vibrational spectroscopy investigation

Mebendazole is a broad spectrum anthelminthic drug, which is widely used in large scale deworming programmes. This active pharmaceutical ingredient exhibits three crystal forms, namely, polymorphs A, B, and C. Therapeutic trials suggested that the most stable form, polymorph A, is inactive. However, the dissolution test normally used as a quality control tool is not able to discriminate among the polymorphs of mebendazole. In this work, the ability of the vibrational spectroscopic techniques (mid and nearinfrared absorption and Raman scattering) for the identification of the crystal form of this compound is evaluated. On the basis of these observations, this methodology is applied to determine the polymorphs of MBZ used in the formulation of the commercial tablets available in the Brazilian and German markets. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.