Pill-splitting too often inexact: study
14th January 2011
By Rada Rouse
SPLITTING pills can lead to highly inaccurate dosing, researchers are warning.
A study has found more than one in 10 tablets split by lay people deviated from the theoretical weight by more than 25%, which could be dangerous, they say.
And nearly a third of the splitting attempts deviated by more than 15%.
In the Belgian study, five people split tablets into 3600 quarters or halves using a purpose-designed pill-splitter, scissors or a kitchen knife.
The splitting device was the most accurate, producing up to 25% deviation from the recommended dose in 13% of cases, and scissors the least accurate, producing