Imaging of in vitro parenteral drug precipitation.

Solid particulate matter introduced into the bloodstream as a result of parenteral drug administration can produce serious pathological conditions. Particulate matter that cannot be eliminated by pre-infusion filtration is often the result of drug precipitation that occurs when certain parenteral formulations are mixed with blood. A new device is designed to model the mixing of drug formulations with flowing blood utilizing a uniquely designed flow cell and a CCD camera to view the formulation as it is mixed with a blood surrogate in real time. The performance of the proposed device is measured using 3 commercially available parenteral formulations previously tested using a validated in vitro model.