This is an automatically translated article.
For safe and effective medication use, it is very important to use the correct dose. To be able to take the correct dose, you need to know the strength of the drug you are taking. Because in each drug there are different brand names, with the same active ingredient, but the content of each type is different.
1. What is the drug content?
Active ingredient content is the mass of a specific type of active ingredient present in the medicinal product. There are drugs with the same name of active ingredient but with different concentrations, the number of drugs and the number of times of drug use will be different. So you need to know how much active ingredient the drug is using to use it correctly.
The content of the main active ingredient is usually calculated in a dose unit such as 1 tablet, 5ml syrup, 1 pack of powder for suspension, .. usually attached immediately after the name of the active ingredient on the product's packaging. You can also find detailed active ingredient concentrations of ingredients in the drug information leaflet.
Example: Brand name is Efferalgan, active ingredient name is Paracetamol with drug content of 500mg
Example 2: Brand name is Augmentin, active ingredient name is Amoxicillin - Clavulanic acid with active ingredient content is 500mg/62.5mg (That is, in each package of medicine, the content of active ingredient Amoxicillin is 500mg, the content of active ingredient clavulanic acid is 62.5mg)
Drug content is a very important indicator for doctors to calculate dosage in cases where it is necessary to adjust dose as children, the elderly, patients with renal failure...
2. Why are there different drug concentrations?
Like 500mg Paracetamol tablets, it means that each tablet has the correct paracetamol content of 500mg and each time you take one or two pills, it will be up to the doctor's instructions to ensure the correct dose. However, there are also some products containing paracetamol with different concentrations, you need to pay attention to use the appropriate dose.
There are many reasons why brand-name drugs have the same active ingredient but different drug content.
As in the case of Aspirin, which is used to prevent secondary myocardial infarction, there are two types of Aspirin with two different strengths, 81mg and 75mg. The reason for the different drug content is that two different gravimetric systems are used to calculate the content.
The British - American measurement system uses the unit of grain (gr) and pound (lb), while the international measurement system (including Vietnam) is mg, g, kg with the change as follows: 1g = 65mg, 1 lb = 453g.
Therefore, there are aspirin tablets manufactured according to the British - American measurement system with a content of 1.25gr = 81mg and there are tablets produced with a content of 75mg, there are also places that also produce tablets with a content of 80mg . Because Aspirin is proven to prevent cardiovascular disease with a dose of 75-325mg each time, so in this case, the use of Aspirin with different concentrations is not different.
As for the cases where there is a difference in drug content because the manufacturer of the drug has different strength, it must be studied in clinical trials and then registered for approval by drug regulatory agencies. circulate.
Hope the above information has helped you understand why there is a difference between the drugs. A good understanding of the drug, dosage and usage will help the treatment process to be effective.
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