Analysis of the Current Status of Children's Commonly Used Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms in China

OBJECTIVE To analyze the current status of commonly used pharmaceutical dosage forms in pediatrics in China. METHODS The medication catalogs of Grade III and Class A children's hospitals in eight different provinces in China were collected, the medication catalogs of common systemic diseases in children were screened out, and finally statistical analysis on the collected medication dosage information was conducted. RESULTS A total of 2 495 kinds of commonly used pediatric medicines were collected, including 1 162(46.6%) oral dosage forms, 1 072 (42.9%) injection dosage forms, 255(9.0%) external dosage forms, and 36(1.4%) inhalation dosage forms. The most commonly used oral dosage forms were ordinary tablets and granules. There were 9 species of Chinese traditional medicine injections, among which labels of 5 species did not indicate the usage and dosage of children. There were 190 species for pediatric specialty medicines, and the most common dosage forms were granules, oral solution, and syrup. CONCLUSION Despite certain improvements of the suitability of commonly used pediatric medicine dosage forms for children, there are still few special pediatric medicines. Young children are still lack of suitable medicine dosage forms, which is still far from meeting the needs of children at different ages for diversified medicine dosage forms.