Compounding Hotline

Mr. Erickson is director of professional affairs at Gallipot Inc.

I heard that Estriol is available again. Is that true?

As of this writing, the following information is available: In July, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals announced a decision in Medical Center Pharmacy v Mukasey. For more information, please visit www.savemybhrt.org. In an earlier, similar case, the 9th Circuit Court made a decision, which contains some important contrasts.

Can you shed light on the stability of "chicken concentrate suspension"?

If by "chicken concentrate suspension" you are referring to the flavoring agent, Chicken Concentrate, that product is a pharmaceutical necessity—added as 0.5% to 1% of the formulation.

Before the flavoring agent was available, some pharmacists ran cooked chicken through a blender to use as a vehicle for suspending insoluble drugs (and for flavoring) for administration to animals.

An elegant alternative is to add the drug to a suspending agent, such as SyrSpend SF, as the whole vehicle, and flavor with suitable flavor concentrate. Another vehicle is methylcellullose 1% as 50% + flavor concentrate qs + syrup (or in this case, water) qs ad 100%.

The ground or blended chicken material can be messy, is a poor suspending agent with variable viscosity, often contains unpredictable ingredients, and frequently becomes rancid long before the assigned beyond-use date. I do not recommend its use unless other alternatives are not available. The glycerin addition might increase viscosity of the material sufficiently to suspend some drugs, but it has the potential to contribute to adverse effects for the animal in large doses and also imparts a sweet flavor to the cooked chicken.

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