Off label

Term used to describe the use of a medication for a condition for which it was not FDA approved. A large number of medications used in veterinary medicine are used 'off label.' If veterinarians only used FDA approved medications, options for treatments of certain conditions would be severely limited or nonexistent. The safety and efficacy of off-label uses of medications is often determined in university research settings, but the manufacturer of the drug does submit the results or go through the elaborate FDA approval process.