dosage form
A dosage form is the physical shape a medicine takes when it reaches the patient: a tablet you swallow, a syrup you measure by spoon, an injection drawn into a syringe, or an ointment you rub on skin. The same drug can appear in many dosage forms, each chosen to suit a route and a patient.
The dosage form is not just packaging. It controls how fast the drug dissolves, where it is released, how stable it stays and how acceptable it is to take. A tablet, for example, combines the active drug with excipients pressed into a defined shape, while an injection presents the drug dissolved in a sterile vehicle.
Choosing a dosage form is a series of trade-offs. Tablets are cheap and stable but useless to a vomiting child; liquids are easy to swallow but harder to keep stable and to dose precisely. Much of pharmaceutics is the art of matching form to need.
Paracetamol is sold as swallowable tablets, dissolvable effervescent tablets, a sweet oral suspension for children, suppositories for those who cannot swallow, and an intravenous infusion for hospitals — all the same drug in different dosage forms.
One drug, many dosage forms, each tuned to a route and a patient.