Abstract
A vial-form preparation of thrombin is the only commercially available one, which is easily mistaken for an injectable preparation. Therefore, we developed a tablet of thrombin to make oral administration easier and studied the pharmaceutical characteristics of the developed thrombin tablet. From a pharmaceutical study, it was concluded that the results of weight variation and disintegration tests of the tablet conformed to the standards of the Japanese Pharmacopeia XI and the activity of thrombin was about 90% of the original vial forms.
Therefore, a tablet containing 10, 000 units of thrombin was prepared and administrated to patients with esophageal varices after endoscofic sclerotherapy. This trial administration was effective in 9 out of 10 cases which was favorably comparable to the vial form preparation.
From these results, it was concluded that the thrombin tablet is useful and makes oral administration easier.
