IN-VIVO STUDIES ON THE BIOEQUIVALENCE OF SOME BRANDS OF OFLOXACIN AND LEVO-FLOXACIN TABLETS MARKETED IN NIGERIA

Objective This study was aimed to assess the bioequivalence of randomly selected brands of ofloxacin and its levo-isomer, levofloxacintablets marketed in Nigeria.Method Bioavailability assessment was conducted by measuring the concentration of drugs in the urine and bioavailability datawas presented as cumulative quantity of drugs recovered in urine in 36 hours. Microbiological assay technique was used toanalyze urine samples.Main Outcome Measure Cumulative quantity of drugs recovered in urine in 36 hours and minimum inhibitory concentrations.Result The five brands of ofloxacin and the three brands of levofloxacin showed the same minimum inhibitory concentrationvalue against the test strain of Staphylococcus aureus of 0.483ìg/ml and 1.953ìg/ml respectively. The result of the percentagecumulative quantity of drug recovered from urine showed that there was no statistical significant difference among ofloxacin andlevofloxacin brands.Conclusion The various brands of ofloxacin (X1 X5) and levofloxacin (Y1 Y3) in Nigeria exhibited same bioavailability data invivo and can be said to be bioequivalents.Keywords Antibiotics, Bioequivalence, Generic substitution, Microbiological assay, Nigeria