Dosage form

Introduction

Dosage forms are a mixture of active drug components and nondrug components. Depending on the method of administration they come in several types. These are liquid dosage form, solid dosage form and semisolid dosage forms. A Liquid dosage form is the liquid form of a dose of a chemical compound used as a drug or medication intended for administration or consumption. Common dosage forms include pill, tablet, or capsule, drink or syrup, (e.g., via oral ingestion or freebase smoking), and natural or herbal form such as plant or food of sorts, among many others. Notably, the route of administration (ROA) for drug delivery is dependent on the dosage form of the substance in question.

Various dosage forms may exist for a single particular drug, since different medical conditions can warrant different routes of administration. For example, persistent nausea and emesis or vomiting may make it difficult to use an oral dosage form, and in such a case, it may be necessary to utilize an alternate route such as inhalational, buccal, sublingual, nasal, suppository or parenteral instead.

Additionally, a specific dosage form may be a requirement for certain kinds of drugs, as there may be issues with various factors like chemical stability or pharmacokinetics. As an example, insulin cannot be given orally because upon being administered in this manner, it is extensively metabolized in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) before reaching the blood stream, and is thereby incapable of sufficiently reaching its therapeutic target destinations. The oral and intravenous doses of a drug such as paracetamol will differ for the same reason.^[1]

Types

Oral

• Pill, tablet, or capsule
• Specialty tablet like buccal, sub-lingual, or orally-disintegrating
• Thin film (e.g., Listerine Pocketpaks)
• Liquid solution or suspension (e.g., drink or syrup)
• Powder or liquid or solid crystals
• Natural or herbal plant, seed, or food of sorts (e.g., marijuana such as that found in "special brownies")

Pastes(Colgate)

Inhalational

• Aerosol
• Inhaler
• Nebulizer
• Smoking (often in natural herb (e.g., tobacco, marijuana) or freebase powder form (e.g., cocaine, methamphetamine))
• Vaporizer (usually to vaporize natural herbs like marijuana)

Parenteral Injection

• Intradermal (ID)
• Intramuscular (IM)
• Intraosseous (IO)
• Intraperitoneal (IP)
• Intravenous (IV)
• Subcutaneous (SC)
• Intrathecal (IT) Injection into the spinal column

Topical

• Cream, gel, liniment or balm, lotion, or ointment, etc.
• Ear drops (otic)
• Eye drops (ophthalmic)
• Skin patch (transdermal)

Suppository

• Rectal (e.g., enema)
• Vaginal (e.g., douche, pessary, etc.)

See also

• Classification of Pharmaco-Therapeutic Referrals
• Drug delivery
• Route of administration

References

External links

• Dosage From Development