RESUMO
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a novel method to determine fastly and nondestructively the content of paeoniflorin, albiflorin and moisture in Radix Paeoniae Alba with near infrared diffuse reflection spectroscopy.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Multivariate calibration models based on PLS algorithm were developed to correlate the spectra and the corresponding values determined by the reference method.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>The corelation coefficients (R2) of the calibration models were 0.938, 0.943 and 0.976, and the prediction average relative deviation for paeoniflorin, albiflorin and moisture content were 6.5%, 0.23% and 3.8%, respectively.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The NIRS determination method is rapid, accurate, nondestructive and non-pollution. It can dispose the samples without complicated pretreatment. It is qualified to analyze rapidly traditional Chinese medicine whose components are complex. NIRS can be used to control the quality of herbal material of paeony formula granule.</p>