Compounding Fundamentals
The process of preparing a medication for an individual patient from bulk ingredients according to a prescription.
What is Compounding?
Any substance in a compounded preparation that confers pharmacological activity.
What is an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API)?
Equipment used for mixing and grinding pharmaceutical ingredients.
What is a Mortar and Pestle?
The date after which a drug should not be used once it has been removed from the intact container or compounded.
What is the Beyond Use Date (BUD)?
The meaning of TID on a prescription.
What is three times a day?
A patient-specific medication prepared on-site from individual ingredients, often by a technician under the direct supervision of the pharmacist.
What is a Compounded Preparation?
A stainless steel pincher instrument like a large tweezer used to pick up small objects, such as pharmacy weights.
What are Forceps?
The process of rubbing, grinding, or pulverizing a substance to create finer particles.
What is Trituration?
A printout for a specific patient, including the amounts, calculations, and instructions used by the technician to document a compounded medication.
What is the Compounding Record?
The meaning of QID on a prescription.
What is four times a day?
Another name for non-sterile compounding in a community pharmacy, usually done for a specific patient's immediate need.
What is Extemporaneous Compounding?
A flask used for accurately measuring liquids.
What is a Graduated Cylinder?
A flat, hard, nonabsorbent surface used for mixing compounds; also known as a compounding slab.
What is an Ointment Slab?
A device that generates heat and pressure to sterilize objects, instruments, and measuring vessels.
What is an Autoclave?
The meaning of AD on a prescription.
What is right ear?
A medication prepared with aseptic technique in a sterile, cleanroom facility.
What is a Compounded Sterile Preparation?
The moon-shaped or concave appearance of a liquid in a graduated cylinder, with the center being the accepted level for volume measurement.
What is the Meniscus?
A process used to blend ingredients with a spatula; often used in the preparation of creams and ointments.
What is Spatulation?
The act of reducing a substance to small, fine particles using particle-reducing techniques like trituration, levigation, and pulverization.
What is Comminution?
The meaning of AU on a prescription.
What is both ears?
An inactive ingredient that is added to the active drug in compounding a tablet, capsule, solution, or topical formulation.
What is a Diluent?
The acceptable range of variation above and below the target measurement; used in compounding and manufacturing.
What is the Percentage of Error?
A process that uses a mortar and pestle to gradually combine ingredients to produce a more homogenous product.
What is the Geometric Dilution Method?
A two-pan balance used to weigh material between 120 mg and 120 g, with a sensitivity rating of $\pm 6\text{ mg}$.
What is a Class III Prescription Balance?
The meaning of UT DICT on a prescription.
What is as directed?