Department of Pharmaceutics, The School of Pharmacy, University of London, United Kingdom.
Int J Pharm. 2010 Aug 16;395(1-2):37-43. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2010.04.048. Epub 2010 May 15.
This mini-review discusses relevant aspects of gastro-intestinal transit in different ages of paediatric patients with an attempt to highlight factors which should be considered in oral dosage form design, in particular multi-particulate dosage forms. This emphasis is due to multi-particulates possessing many of the benefits of liquid oral formulations (such as ease of swallowing and dose adaptability) without many of their drawbacks (such as stability issues and lack of enteric or modified release functionalities). It is commonly stated that children are not merely small adults with regards to medicines. However, there has been very little research regarding how different dosage forms transit through the gastro-intestinal tract in children compared to adults, due to both ethical and practical hurdles. Due to this lack of studies on dosage form transit in children, information which was available on the transit of food, milk and liquids (often dependent upon the age of the patient) has been used to look at how various aspects of transit vary with age and, where possible, when they reach adult values and how these may affect the fate of dosage forms in vivo: swallowability, oesophageal transit, gastric emptying and pH, intestinal and colonic transit are discussed.
这篇小型综述讨论了不同年龄段儿科患者胃肠道转运的相关方面，试图强调在口服剂型设计中应考虑的因素，特别是多颗粒剂型。之所以强调这一点，是因为多颗粒剂型具有许多液体口服制剂的优点（如易于吞咽和剂量适应性），而没有许多缺点（如稳定性问题和缺乏肠溶或改良释放功能）。人们常说，儿童在药物方面不仅仅是小大人。然而，由于伦理和实际障碍，关于不同剂型在儿童和成人中的胃肠道转运情况的研究很少。由于对儿童剂型转运的研究不足，因此使用了有关食物、牛奶和液体转运的信息（通常取决于患者的年龄）来研究各种转运方面如何随年龄变化，以及在何时达到成人值，以及这些如何影响体内剂型的命运：可吞咽性、食管转运、胃排空和 pH 值、肠道和结肠转运。
