Article date: November 1996
By: A. J. MILLER &, K J. SMITH, in Volume 42, Issue 5, pages 645-645
In their recent paper Drake et al. [1] have expressed the opinion that Oramorph SR tablets and MST CONTINUS tablets are‘readily interchangeable’in patients receiving either product for pain control. This is based on the equivalence of the extent of availability of morphine from the two preparations. However, guidelines on bioequivalence issued by the authorities of the European Community define bioavailability in terms of both the rate and extent of absorption [2]. The authors appear to have chosen to disregard the statistically significant difference in Cmax between the preparations, the mean Cmax associated with the Oramorph SR Tablet (13.9 ng ml‐1) was 30% higher than that associated with the MST CONTINUS tablet (10.7 ng ml‐1) which indicates that the rate of absorption from the two preparations was different. Therefore, we do not accept that the two products are interchangeable.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.1996.tb00124.x
View this article