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When blood is exposed to air, it clots. Heparin allows the blood to come in direct contact with air without clotting.
Patients who cannot swallow may receive nutrition via a parenteral route—usually, a catheter is inserted through the chest into a large vein going into the heart.
Intradermal injections are somewhat difficult to correctly administer because the skin layers are so thin that it is easy to accidentally punch through to the deeper subcutaneous layer.
Interferon was scarce and expensive until 1980, when the interferon gene was inserted into bacteria using recombinant DNA technology, allowing for mass cultivation and purification from bacterial cultures.
For pediatric patients, intravenous fluids are the most commonly cited products involved in medication errors that are reported to the USP.