Splitting Pills Can Lead to Improper Dosages of Prescription Drugs, Study Finds

Cutting pills in half can result in an improper dose of the medication because of the difficulty in splitting them evenly, according to a study published in the September/October Journal of the American Pharmacist Association, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal reports. Rutgers State University assistant pharmacy professor Thomas Cook and colleagues split 45 tablets with a kitchen knife and 45 with a pill splitter and found that the pills split unevenly in both cases. In some cases, fragments of the tablet broke off each half. "The variance in estimated drug content due to uneven tablet splitting ranged anywhere from 50% to 150% of the ideal targets, meaning a patient would have no guarantee of consistently receiving the intended amount of medication," Cook said. Pharmaceutical companies, APhA and the American Medical Association do not advocate pill splitting, but some health insurers have promoted the practice on a limited basis. APhA said in certain cases pill splitting can be done properly to reduce consumers' prescription drug costs (Dooren, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, 9/14).