DETECTION OF SILDENAFIL CITRATE FROM APHRODISIAC HERBAL FORMULATIONS

摘要

Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra (Pfizer), is a prescription medicine used for erectile dysfunction. Sildenafil were isolated and purified during the analysis of some herbal products marketed for treatment of erectile dysfunction. There is no standardization technique for herbal formulations hence the addition of adulterants in herbal is very difficult to get hold of. Most of the adulterants added are to enhance the efficiency of the preparation. Not only sildenafil but various other drugs such as Tedanafil, Verdinafil and their analogues were used in the formulations. We have extracted sildenafil by using double extraction in which methanol: water (50:50) was used as an extractant along with process of sonication which was then further detected using UV visible spectroscopy. Seven samples were screened for the presence of sildenafil citrate and out of which two were found to be contaminated with sildenafil citrate. The proposed method is simple, cost effective, environmental friendly and effective to be used in most of the laboratories.