습기주의 약품의 산제 투약 시 손실분의 분석과 개선 방안

Abstract

Tablet medications have been dispensed in powder form for patients who are unable toswallow pills whether the pills have a hygroscopic nature or not. Powder form dispensing proceduresconsist of crushing, straining, distributing and packaging. During the processing, there is a highchance of losing some of the drug. Especially, it is predicted that a significant amount of hygroscopicmedication could be lost when dispensed in powder form. This study aimed to analyze the lossamounts, to compare the loss amounts between hygroscopic medication and normal medication andto suggest methods to decrease loss. Normal tablets and film-coated tablets as control medication as well as 7 hygroscopic tablets werecompared. To adjust for bias against the percentage of loss being inversely proportional to the weightof the tablets, we analyzed the loss amounts after preparing various weights of powder form with control tablets. The average loss was 7.5% vs 0.5, 6.6% (hygroscopic tablets vs non film and film-coating tablets)during grinding and straining. The average loss at distribution was 7.3% vs 4.3, 4.2%. We suggestskipping the straining process to decrease loss during grinding. Without straining, the solving timeswith the hygroscopic drug powders were 60.5 (25±1℃) and 42.5 (35±1℃) seconds. The increasedamount of hygroscopic powder in room air due to moisture absorbance was compared to control drug:4.56% vs 2.63% (control), 3.03% vs 1.87% without or with silica gel. The amount of hygroscopic drugs lost with processing into power form was greater than for normaldrugs. A particularly large gap was observed during grinding and straining. We suggest avoiding thestraining process and encasing hygroscopic drug powders in silica gel.