What Is The Difference Between Sustained Release And Extended Release Medications?

There is no major difference between sustained release and extended release medications; they both refer to a group of medicines that have been designed to be absorbed in the body and take effect within a specific frame of time, such as 12 or 24 hours. They both make use of time-release technology, as compared to the instant-release technology employed in the manufacture of other drugs.

There are some advantages of using sustained release drugs, and its most popular benefit is the ability to keep stable amounts of the medication in the bloodstream. They also don’t have to be taken as frequent as instant-release drugs.

However, the rate that at which the drug is released depends on a number of important factors. In most cases, the release is quite slow that it applies for several hours until effect is felt, but it is also possible to modify the drug’s coating in order to control the time and location of release.

When it comes to formulating these types of medications, there are certain things to consider. One is that if the active compound has a half-life of over 6 hours, the release can be sustained on its own. On the other hand, if it has a short half-life, a larger amount of the active compound is required in order to produce a sustainable and effective dosage. Care will also have to be taken to ensure that toxicity does not occur. Another thing is that if the active compound has no pharmacological relation to the blood levels, there is no use for time-release.

Also, if the active compound requires transport for absorption to occur, there may be significant problems in the time-release process. Not all drugs created through time release technology can be treated the same, especially in dosage as some capsule forms will work when swallowed whole while others do not work when cut up or split.

In case of sustained release the drug release profile will be in sustain manner and the release profile is not in a pre determined rate(as in Controlled release),byt when the sustained release is for a long time we can say that is extended release,otherwise both are almost same as far as release profile is concerned.

Sustained and extended release medications are those medications that dissolve and release in the body over a time. These drugs are formulated in such a way that the active material is coated with some relatively insoluble material or films. So when we take them, the upper coating or film releases very slowly in the body with the slow release of active material. Hence, they give a constant concentration in the blood stream. They may be the controlled release or without the controlled release. Controlled release means the medicines release with the passage of time irrespective of the concentration.

The principle of sustained release lies on releasing the content of a medication in a timed frame. The point is which kind of drugs qualify for this kind of dosage form? First it has to have half life of 2-8 hrs to meet the criteria. While on the other hand, those with half life of greater than 8 have less frequency of administration and don't qualify for this and in the same token those with less than 2 hrs can not be administered in this dosage form. Since the purpose is to reduce the dosing frequency not the actual amount of the drug, the blood concentration should be the same in both instances. This means, if we intend to formulate a drug with 2 hr half life, we have to put all amount needed for the 24/12 hr period; however, the individual variation in the utilization of the drug causes in sub or hyper therapeutic blood concentration and this will be a limiting factor to incorporate it in this type of dosage form.

Extended release medication is one which is controlled while sustained release is slow release of the drug

Not mch difference

No difference.....then why two terms are used separately in literature?

Sustained means all at once extended means little at time