Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy

In recent years, the use of nebulisers to generate aerosols has been greatly extended because of their numerous advantages. Two types of nebulisers are commonly used, each based on a different principle : - jet nebulisers, based on the Venturi effect to fragment liquid preparations into small droplets. - ultrasonic nebulisers, using the vibrations of a quartz to produce aerosol. The use of nebulisers lacks standardisation, which may account for certain inefficiency. First of all, we defined the parameters required to evaluate nebulisation efficiency. Although droplet size is a commonly used parameter, it is not sufficient to forecast efficiency. It must be associated with the quantity of drug nebulised and nebulisation time. Secondly, we listed factors influencing nebulisation efficiency.