Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are the group most often used in human and veterinary medicine, since they are available without prescription for treatment of fever and minor pain. The clinical and pharmaceutical analysis of these drugs requires effective analytical procedures for quality control and pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic studies. An extensive survey of the literature published in various analytical and pharmaceutical chemistry related journals has been conducted and the instrumental analytical methods which were developed and used for determination of some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, coxibs, arylalkanoic acids, 2-arylpropionic acids (profens) and N-arylanthranilic acids (fenamic acids) in bulk drugs, formulations and biological fluids have been reviewed. This review covers the time period from 1985 to 2010 during which 145 spectrophotometric methods including UV and derivative; visible which is based on formation of metal complexation, redox reactions, ion pair formation, charge-transfer complexation and miscellaneous; flow injection spectrophotometry as well as spectrofluorometric methods were reported. The application of these methods for the determination of NSAIDs in pharmaceutical formulations and biological samples has also been discussed.
