Why Is There A Pill Less on A Blister Plate?

After opening the medicine package bought from a regular hospital, it is found that one tablet seems to be missing from the blister plate, which should be arranged neatly with eight tablets. Sometimes, there was only a single pill on a large blister; and sometimes, the pills are even arranged in the shape of heart. Medicines, of course, are not randomly arranged, its quality and specifications on the blister are determined by its use and treatment course.

For example, the sitagliptin phosphate/metformin hydrochloride tablets produced by MSD (Mershadong), there are 14 tablets on a blister, which is exactly the dosage of a week for hypoglycemic patients. While Betaloc for hypertension, there are 7 tablets in a blister plate, because it is taken only one tablet a day.

For some medicines, even only one tablet or two in the blister. For example, levonorgestrel tablets, for emergency contraception, can prevent pregnancy by temporarily suspending the ovulation of ovaries, which need to be taken the other tablet 12 hours after taking the first one for improving contraceptive rate. This two tablets in one blister design is just for once use.

Since tablet quality is determined according to the dosage, why do we need such a large blister plate where there is only one tablet? It is also closely related to the packing process and necessary information printing.

Open the package, the tablet/capsule/pellet/pill, etc. is placed in a blister, we need to push them out of the sealed aluminum foil to take them. This kind of package process is called blister packing. The material for forming blister is mainly plastic hard sheet compounded by PVC (polyvinyl chloride), VCM (vinyl chloride) and others, which act as cushion during transportation, meet various requirements such as avoiding light, blocking vapor and oxygen for preservation. The blister package protects the medicine better, and also enlarges the plate size.

Referring to the standard instructions issued by China Pharmaceutical Packaging Association, the distance between the capsule or tablet and the blister cavity should be ≥0.5mm, to better prevent the medicine from being physically damaged or deteriorated by heating. Moreover, due to sealing and vapor and oxygen isolating requests, the spacing between blister cavity and plate edge, and between two blisters, should be ≥2.5mm. Ideally, it should be 5mm to avoid children gaining medicines by biting.

Moreover, according to the Administrative Provision for Medicine Instructions and Labels, the medicine package should display the medicine name, usage and dosage, production date, and other information, so as to ensure that patients will not take the wrong medicine and dosage even if they lose the instructions. As a result, no matter how many tablets, the blister plate should at least meet the spacing requirements for printing necessary information, that’s the reason why a large plate only contains a few pill/tablets/capsules, etc.

One pill less in a blister plate may be a ingenious design to match the dosage. In fact, the seemingly superfluous space is also to protect the medicine for taking them safely.

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