Routes of Treatment Administration

When you think about medications for different diseases, an important factor for some patients can be how the medication is taken or the route of treatment administration. There are three major routes of administration: enteric (goes into the gastrointestinal tract; e.g., oral, rectal), parenteral (outside the gastrointestinal tract; e.g., inhalation, intravenous, intramuscular, subcutaneous), or topical (on the skin).

The route of treatment administration can be particularly important to consider for ME/CFS. For example, some patients have difficulty swallowing tablets and suffer from harsh gastrointestinal symptoms that may make enteric routes challenging. For others, traveling to an infusion site for parenteral administration can induce post-exertional malaise. 

OMF’s Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration is conducting a study, called Personalized Treatment Trials, evaluating a variety of treatments that are being trialed through ME/CFS and Long COVID patients’ general practitioners, including those using different routes of administration. Read more about the study on our website.