Radiosterilization of fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins: assessment of radiation damage on antibiotics by changes in optical property and colorimetric parameters.

A most common problem encountered in radiosterilization of solid drugs is discoloration or yellowing. By pharmacopoeia method, discoloration can be assessed by measuring absorbance of solutions of irradiated solid samples at 450 nm. We propose to evaluate discoloration of solid samples directly by recording their diffuse reflectance spectra. Further, the reflectance spectrum is used to compute various color parameters: CIE XYZ tristimulus value, CIE Lab, DeltaE*(ab) (color difference), yellowness index (YI), dominant wavelength, and excitation purity by CIE method. The investigation of difference reflectance spectra and color parameters revealed that for fluoroquinolones, e-beam was more damaging than gamma radiation, whereas for cephalosporins, trend was reversed. The quantum of discoloration with gamma radiation and e-beam is found to be nearly equal when assessed by pharmacopeia method, and it is therefore inadequate to assess small color differences. The color parameters DeltaE*(ab) and DeltaYI are found to be reliable indicators of discoloration. The tolerance limits proposed in terms of DeltaE*(ab) and DeltaYI are +/-2 and +/-10 U, respectively. The dominant wavelength for all compounds has shifted to higher values indicating change in hue but defining color tolerance limit with this parameter requires adjunct excitation purity value.