Extemporaneous oral preparations: an alternative for hospitalized children

Abstract

The lack of pharmaceutical formulations proper for children favors the manipulation of extemporaneous oral preparations by hospital pharmacies. The study aimed to identify the medications reformulated by the pharmacy of Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, as well as the availability for use in oral liquid formulations on Pediatrics. The drugs were classified according to the criteria approved by the Food and Drug Administration; for that, the DrugDex-Micromedex® database was used, while the reformulated items were classified as unlicensed. 2026 medicines in the 342 prescriptions were analyzed, while 35 % were classified as off-label use and 14.9 % as not approved. Extemporaneous preparations were made for 3.8 % of the items, whereas 95 % showed stability studies in the literature. The drugs most frequent compounded in extemporaneous formulations drugs were baclofen (18.9 %), furosemide (10 %) and ursodeoxycholic acid (7.6 %). The results of this and other studies highlight the problem occasioned by the lack of pharmaceutical formulations appropriate for children.