Critical appraisal of commercially available suspending vehicles for extemporaneous compounding of cardiovascular medicines: physical and chemical stability mini review

AbstractOral liquid formulations are compounded by pharmacists to meet the needs of patients when a suitable commercially available product is not available. To minimize the errors associated with measuring multiple excipients and to enhance the shelf-life of the medicines, commercially available suspending bases are commonly used. This review aims to compare the stability and shelf life of commercially available extemporaneous formulation to traditional formulation methods. Five (5) databases were searched (Pubmed, SCOPUS, Science direct, Embase, and EBSCOhost). Twelve articles, comprising of seven cardiovascular medications (amiodarone, captopril, carvedilol, furosemide, nifedipine, sotalol, and valsartan), met the study inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Chemical stability of the drugs was comparable between the two formulation methods except for furosemide, captopril, and valsartan. The traditional compounding method provided superior stability for furosemide (90 vs. 14 days) and captopril (50 vs. ...