One of the most common ways of taking a drug is to swallow a pill. However, young children and people with health conditions ranging from Parkinson's disease to throat cancer can have trouble getting down a tablet or capsule. Other drugs, such as insulin, need to be injected, which can be painful and even trigger phobias. To overcome these issues, researchers are developing new ways of administering drugs that are easier, more convenient, and could work faster and have fewer side effects than traditional methods.
Two of the most up-and-coming technologies, buccal films and buccal patches, deliver drugs via the inside lining of the cheek. The major difference between the two is that films dissolve away while patches stick around and have to be removed.
One benefit of the film is that it doesn't require water, so you can take it anywhere, at any time. A benefit of a patch is that once you put it in, it's easy to ignore. "It's extremely thin," said Sabine Szunerits, a chemistry professor at Université de Lille in France, about the new type of buccal patch she is developing. "You don't even feel it."
Buccal films for some drugs are currently available, including one that carries
