ABSTRACT
Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is used in pharmaceutical products that are administered orally and in food, there is much more information regarding the oral absorption of PVP than about absorption following administration by other routes. PVP has been used as an experimental tool to investigate the pore size in the gastrointestinal tract and the molecular weight of material that can be absorbed by this route. Chemical techniques for the identification and quantitation of PVP are more complex and less reliable than those using radio-labelled material. The evidence clearly suggests from the experiments so far described that a component of the PVP preparations which have been studied is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract into the body. Interest in the possible absorption of PVP by inhalation stems from the description by Bergmann et al. of clinical and histological pulmonary inflammation, which they attributed to the polymers used in hair spray.
