Question

A patient has an order for a drug to be infused at the rate of 5 mcg/kg/min. A 500 ml bag contains 250 mg of the drug and the patient weighs 185 pounds. An infusion set with a drop factor of 20 is being used. What is the flow rate in gtts/min

Answer 1

The flow rate is 17gtts/min.

What is the drug infusion rate?

• The rate of infusion (or dosing rate) in pharmacokinetics refers to the ideal rate at which a drug should be supplied to achieve a steady state of a fixed dose that has been shown to be therapeutically effective. This rate is not only the rate at which a drug is administered.
• The infusion volume is divided into drops, which is known as a drip-rate. The Drip Rate formula is as follows: Volume (mL) times time (h) equals drip-rate. A patient must get 1,000 mL of intravenous fluids over the course of eight hours.
• Infusion rates of 3–4 mg/kg per minute are advised by manufacturers to reduce rate-related adverse effects. Usually, the infusion lasts for several hours. Although not advised, rates exceeding 5 mg/kg per hour may be tolerated by some patients.
• If no negative reactions occur, the rate may be increased in accordance with the table every 30 minutes up to a maximum rate of 3 ml/kg/hour (not to exceed 150 ml/hour).

To find the flow rate is 17gtts/min:

$\frac{18 units}{h} \frac{100ml}{100units} \frac{500ml}{250mg} \frac{1mg}{1000mgc} \frac{20gtts}{ml} =\frac{17gtts}{min}$

Therefore, The flow rate is 17gtts/min.

To learn more about infusion rate, refer to:

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