Objectives Parenteral drug products should be essentially free from visible particulate contamination. To ensure this, every batch produced must be subject to a 100% visual inspection. Monograph 2.9.20 of the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) describes a method for visual inspection of parenteral drug units in front of a black and white panel using a white light source. Nevertheless, several Dutch compounding pharmacies rely on an alternative method for visual inspection by means of polarised light. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of both methods.

Methods Trained technicians in three different hospitals inspected a predetermined set of samples using both methods for visual inspection of parenteral drugs.

Results The results of this study show that the alternative method for visual inspection yields a higher recovery than the Ph. Eur. method, while no significant difference in false positive results was found.

Conclusions Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the alternative method for visual inspection by means of polarised light can very well replace the Ph. Eur. method in pharmacy practice, provided that local validation of the alternative method is performed.