Abstract

Comparison of Therapeutic Efficacy of Metformin and Glibenclamide as a Single Agent or in Combination by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry

Author(s): S. Gunasekaran, R. K. Natarajan and V. Renganayaki

FTIR spectroscopy has emerged in recent years as the analytical method of choice in understanding the biological nature of the disease and as a biodiagnostics tool. Since blood serves as the primary metabolic transport system in the human body, its composition is the preferred indicator with respect to the pathophysiological conditions of the patient. The biochemical changes in diabetic blood have been determined using FTIR spectroscopy. This article explains the IR spectroscopy based analytical method to compare the efficacy of monotherapy and combination therapy of type-2 diabetes drugs, namely metformin and glibenclamide.The technique uses the IR spectra of air dried fasting and post prandial sera treated with metformin, glibenclmide and their combinations, respectively. The characteristic spectral features and patterns have been identified as the basis to distinguish spectra corresponding to healthy subjects from those corresponding to diabetic patients. The therapeutic efficacy of the two drugs is analyzed by comparing the absorption level of the diabetic sera treated with either metformin or glibenclamide or the combination. To quantify the spectral differences between healthy, fasting and post prandial sera, three intensity ratio parameters are introduced. Also, to substantiate the findings, one way ANOVA analysis has been carried out. The combination therapy was found to be better than monotherapy. Results matched with those obtained by clinical methods. FTIR spectroscopy is a sensitive analytical tool to compare the therapeutic efficacy of drugs by quantitative analysis of the spectra of diseased sera, treated with the respective drugs.