3PC-050 Importance of compounding in the paediatric hospital pharmacy

Background and importance Paediatric pharmacy often faces a lack of commercially available medicines suitable or even licensed for use in children. Children cannot be regarded as small adults or as a homogeneous group in themselves. As a consequence, paediatric medicines should be appropriately designed for the target age group. Compounding is the main solution to this problem, so the compounding area becomes essential in this type of centre. Given the high number of requests for these formulations, including the most commonly used compounded preparations in the pharmacy formulary as standard preparations (SP) is a possible solution. Aim and objectives To highlight the importance of compounding for obtaining child friendly dosage forms and formulations in a referral paediatric hospital. Material and methods All SP included in the pharmacy formulary were identified and research was conducted to ensure that a suitable or licensed commercial product for paediatric patients was unavailable nationally and internationally. Using our compounding software, we quantified all SP made in 2017 due to the lack of a commercially available product and classified these according to their route of administration. Results Our formulary included 99 SP compounded in our pharmacy department (table 1). Oral liquid compounded formulations (52) represented 35% of the total oral liquid drugs available in our formulary (148). Table 2 describes the reasons for compounding our 99 SP. Conclusion and relevance The development of age appropriate and acceptable paediatric dosage forms is a complex and challenging process, as it is necessary to consider children´s acceptability and preferences for different formulations as well as the use of adequate excipients in this population. In our hospital, about one-third of the oral liquid preparations, the most adequate in paediatrics, are SP. References and/or acknowledgements No conflict of interest.