Is there any difference in the way of drug administration via gavage ( feeding needle) or drinking water?

Question

i exactly want to know about the possibilities of differences in effects produced by the drug which is administered in the body either via drinking water or gavage (feeding needle)

Answer 1

Providing the medication put down the gastric tube is oral medication (not meant to dissolve in the mouth) and is going directly to the stomach there is no real difference. Usually meds put down the tube are crushed or in liquid form; if there is any difference it would only be in the extra minutes that were taken out of the equation through crushing the med instead of having it dissolve in the stomach fully from pill form. When you swallow a pill it goes to the stomach; when you have a nasogastric or orogastric tube it goes directly to the stomach through the same route the pill would take. The biggest differences would be where the tube was placed...if the tube bypassed the stomach and was a j tube (in jejunum), peg tube, g tube, etc... depending on where these tubes are placed could have a slower or quicker (but I think maybe a slower) reaction time because of digestion...in the intestines you do not have the HCL acid to aid in digestion, but even still it is usually crushed or liquid med anyway. As long as there are no issues with absorption the differences in digestion should still be minimal. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

With gavage you can deliver a controlled dose of the drug at the exact time you want. If you add it to the drinking water, the amount administered is variable and the timing cannot be rigidly controlled since the animal does not drink all the water at the same time and may in fact avoid the water if it doesn't like the taste of the drug in the water.