Pharmaceutical

Terminology
A drug is any substance other than food, that when inhaled, injected,
consumed or absorbed via a patch on the skin causes a physiological change in
the body.

In pharmacology, a pharmaceutical drug or medicine, is a chemical substance

used to treat, cure, prevent, diagnose a disease or promote well being.

a drug can be broadly defined as any man-made, natural, or endogenous (from

within body) molecule which exerts a biochemical and/or physiological effect on
the cell, tissue, organ, or organism.

Traditionally drugs were obtained through extraction from medicinal plants, but
more recently also by organic synthesis.
Pharmacology
is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug
action in the biological system.
More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a
living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical
function
Pharmacokinetics
sometimes abbreviated as PK (from Ancient Greek pharmakon
"drug" and kinetikos "moving, putting in motion";
is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to determining the fate of
substances administered externally to a living organism.
● The substances of interest include pharmaceutical agents,
hormones, nutrients, and toxins.
●It attempts to discover the fate of a drug from the moment that it
is administered up to the point at which it is completely eliminated
from the body.
● Pharmacokinetics describes how the body affects a specific
drug after administration through the mechanisms of absorption
and distribution, as well as the chemical changes of the substance
in the body by metabolic enzymes such as cytochrome P450 or
enzymes, and the effects and routes of excretion of the metabolites
of the drug
Pharmacodynamics
is the study of the biochemical and physiological effects of drugs on the body
or on microorganisms or parasites within or on the body and the mechanisms
of drug action and the relationship between drug concentration and effect.

One dominant example is drug-receptor interactions as

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modeled by
 Dose
Dose means quantity of medicin prescribed to be taken at one time.

Dosage is the rate of application of a dose.

 Dosage forms
Dosage forms (also called unit doses) are essentially
pharmaceutical drug products in the form in which they are
marketed for use, typically involving a mixture of active drug
components and nondrug components (excipients), along with
other non-reusable material that may not be considered either
ingredient or packaging (such as a capsule shell, for example).
Route of administration
● A route of administration in pharmacology and toxicology is the path by
which a drug, fluid, poison, or other substance is taken into the body.
● Routes of administration are generally classified by the location at which the
substance is applied.
● Common examples include oral and intravenous administration. Routes can
also be classified based on where the target of action is.
● Action may be topical (local), enteral (system-wide effect, but delivered
through the gastrointestinal tract), or parenteral (systemic action, but delivered
by routes other than the GI tract).
Adverse effect
In medicine, an adverse effect is an undesired harmful effect
resulting from a medication or other intervention such as surgery.
An adverse effect may be termed a "side effect", when judged to
be secondary to a main or therapeutic effect. If it results from an
unsuitable or incorrect dosage or procedure, this is called
a medical error and not a complication. Adverse effects are
sometimes referred to as "iatrogenic" because they are generated
by a physician/treatment.
➢morbidity,rate of disease in population
➢ mortality,state of being subject to death
➢alteration in body weight, levels of enzymes, loss of function, or
➢as a pathological change detected at the microscopic,
macroscopic or physiological level.
➢ It may also be indicated by symptoms reported by a patient.
Adverse effects may cause a reversible or irreversible change,
Indication and contraindication
Indication Is a medical condition to which certain treatment
should be prescribed
Contraindication is a condition or factor that serves as a reason to
withhold a certain medical treatment due to the harm that it would
cause the patient.
● Contraindication is the opposite of indication,
● For example, children and teenagers with viral infections should
not be given aspirin because of the risk of Reye's syndrome,
 Drug interaction
● A drug interaction is a situation in which a substance (usually
another drug) affects the activity of a drug when both are
administered together. This action can be synergistic (when the
drug's effect is increased) or antagonistic (when the drug's effect
is decreased) or a new effect can be produced that neither
produces on its own.
● Typically, interactions between drugs come to mind (drug-drug
interaction). However, interactions may also exist between drugs
and foods (drug-food interactions), as well as drugs and medicinal
plants or herbs (drug-plant interactions). People
taking antidepressant drugs such as monoamine oxidase
inhibitors should not take food containing tyramine as
hypertensive crisis may occur (an example of a drug-food
interaction).
 Pharmacotherapy
● Pharmacotherapy is therapy using pharmaceutical drugs, as
distinguished from therapy using surgery (surgical therapy),
radiation (radiation therapy), movement (physical therapy), or
other modes.
● Among physicians, sometimes the term medical therapy refers
specifically to pharmacotherapy as opposed to surgical or other
therapy
● Pharmacists are experts in pharmacotherapy and are responsible
for ensuring the safe, appropriate, and economical use of
pharmaceutical drugs.
 Clinical
pharmacy
●Clinical pharmacy is the branch
of Pharmacy where pharmacists provide patient care that optimizes
the use of medication and promotes health, wellness, and disease
prevention.
●Clinical pharmacists often collaborate with physicians and
other healthcare professionals.
● Clinical pharmacists have extensive education in the,
biomedical, pharmaceutical , socio behavioral and clinical
sciences.
●Most clinical pharmacists have a Doctor of
Pharmacy(Pharm.D.) degree and many have completed one or
more years of post-graduate training (e.g. a general and/or
specialty pharmacy residency)
● A pharmacist may become a Board Certified
Pharmacotherapy Specialist (BCPS), a Board Certified
Oncology Pharmacist (BCOP), a Board Certified a Board
Certified Nutrition Support Pharmacist (BCNSP), a Board
Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist (BCPP)
 Therapeutic drug
monitoring
●Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is a branch of clinical
chemistry and clinical pharmacology that specializes in the
measurement of medication concentrations in blood. Its main
focus is on drugs with a narrow therapeutic range, i.e. drugs that
can easily be under- or overdosed.
●TDM aims at improving patient care by individually adjusting
the dose of drugs for which clinical experience or clinical trials
have shown it improved outcome in the general or special
populations.
Patient education is the process by which health professionals and
others impart information to patients and their caregivers that will
alter their health behaviors or improve their health status

Patient compliance (also adherence, capacitance) describes the

degree to which a patient correctly follows medical advice.
 Prodrug
● A prodrug is a medication or compound that,
after administration, is metabolized (i.e., converted within the
body) into a pharmacologically active drug.
● Inactive prodrugs are pharmacologically inactive medications
that are metabolized into an active form within the body