Lactulose

Drug Usage Statistics, United States, 2013 - 2021

Lactulose Summary for 2021

Top drug rank	#265 ( 107)
Estimated number of prescriptions in the United States (2021)	1,164,694
Estimated number of patients in the United States (2021)	424,071

Average total drug cost (USD)
Per prescription	$27.87
Per day of therapy	$1.09/day
Average out-of-pocket cost (USD)
Per prescription	$4.37
Per day of therapy	$0.16/day

Total Prescriptions and Patients Per Year (2013 - 2021)

Rank of Top Drugs Over Time

"Rank" refers to the frequency that a given medication is prescribed within a calendar year compared to all other medications. A rank of "4" would indicate that the medication was the fourth most commonly prescribed medication.

Year	Rank	Change
2013	302	36
2014	320	18
2015	300	20
2016	324	24

Year	Rank	Change
2017	368	44
2018	370	2
2019	331	39
2020	372	41
2021	265	107

Drug Cost Over Time (2013 - 2021)

Cost Per Prescription Fill: Average cost per filled prescription regardless of how many days of therapy the prescription is filled for (e.g. 10 days, 30 days, 90 days, etc.)
Cost per Day of Therapy: The average cost per prescription fill divided by the days of therapy. For example, a 10-day antibiotic course costing $30 would be $3 per day. Similarly, a 30-day supply of an oral antihypetensive costing $30 would be $1 per day.

Total cost: The average total cost of the medication including the out-of-pocket cost (see below) plus the amount paid by other parties (Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, Veterans Administration, TRICARE, other state/federal sources, Worker's compensation, and other miscellaneous sources)
Out-of-pocket cost: The average payment made by the patient which may include deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, or the cash price paid without insurance coverage.

Cost Per Prescription Fill (USD)

Cost Per Day of Therapy (USD/day)

Distribution of Dispensed Dosage Forms (2021)

Dosage Form	Strength	% of Dispensed Products
Solution	10/15 gm/ml	100.0%

Distribution of Days Supplied (2021)

"Days supply" is defined as the number of days that a prescription should last. For example, a prescription of 60 tablets that is taken twice daily has a day supply of 30 days.

Related Drugs

Drug Name	Total Prescriptions (2021)
Magnesium Salts	2,102,185
Polyethylene Glycol 3350	1,831,599
Lactulose (this drug)	1,164,695
Polyethylene Glycol 3350 With Electrolytes	552,075
Magnesium	322,484
Aluminum Hydroxide; Dimethicone; Magnesium Hydroxide	145,902
Anhydrous Citric Acid; Magnesium Oxide; Sodium Picosulfate	130,957
Magnesium	114,357
Aluminum Hydroxide; Magnesium Carbonate	17,329

Therapeutic Classes

Drug Synonyms

Drug synonyms are used during the sanitation and standardization process of "cleaning" the original data source (MEPS). Occassionally, brand names may be listed below that are no longer on the market or are very infrequently used.

Brand Name Synonyms

Acilac
Cephulac
Cholac
Chronulac
Constilac
Constulose
Duphalac
Enulose
Evalose
Generlac
Heptalac
Laxilose
Portalac

Generic Drug Synonyms and Salts

Lactulose

FDA Approval Information

Established Pharmacologic Class (EPC):	Osmotic Laxative
Initial FDA approval date:	Prior to January 1, 1982
First FDA applicant:	Discn
First dosage form:	Solution (oral)

Prescription data source: Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) 2013-2021. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Rockville, MD. ClinCalc DrugStats Database version 2024.01. Read more about the ClinCalc DrugStats database.

All ClinCalc DrugStats figures and graphs on this page are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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Updated Sep 12, 2021

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