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Letters and numbers pressed into a tablet, identifying the product.
Also known as: Tablet marking, Pill code
A pill imprint code is the set of letters, numbers or symbols pressed or printed onto a tablet or capsule to identify it. Together with the shape and the colour it is how a loose tablet is identified, which matters when a medicine is found out of its packaging. The codes are not international: the same imprint can identify different products in different countries, so an identification must be made against the right national database rather than the first one a search returns.
Is national rather than international: the same imprint identifies different products in different countries, so an identification made against the wrong country's database can be confidently and completely wrong.
Identifying a medicine from its imprint is a task for a pharmacist or a poisons service. This record describes what the code is, not how to act on one.
Contexts: Medicine
Frequently includes a score line, which is a functional marking rather than an identifying one: it says the tablet may be divided, and a tablet without one generally may not be.
Contexts: Medicine
Letters or numbers pressed into the face of a small disc or oval, often with a straight groove running across the middle of it.
Both identify a prescribed medicine.