Question

Doctors can approximate the Body Surface Area (BSA) of an adult (in square meters) using the BSA index: B⁢S⁢A=H⋅W3600 , where H is the height in centimeters and W is the weight in kilograms. What is the weight (to the nearest kilogram) of an adult who has a BSA of 1.96⁢m2  and is 185⁢c⁢m  tall?

Answer 1

75 kilograms The equation given for BSA doesn't look correct, perhaps due to formatting issues involving a simple copy and paste without any proofreading afterwards. Doing a quick google search gives the Mosteller formula for BSA which is: BSA = sqrt(W*H/3600) This formula is quite likely the original target of the copy and paste since it has all of the correct values and it's likely that the square root symbol wasn't properly pasted, nor the horizontal bar indicating division. So I'll use the Mosteller formula in solving this problem: First, solve for W, then substitute the known values and calculate: BSA = sqrt(W*H/3600) BSA^2 = W*H/3600 3600*BSA^2 = W*H 3600*BSA^2/H = W 3600*1.96^2/185 = W 3600*3.8416/185 = W 74.755 = W So the weight of the adult is 75 kilograms. If the incorrectly copied equation of Bâ˘Sâ˘A=Hâ‹…W3600 were to be used and if the missing operator between the W and the 3600 were a divide symbol, the calculated value would be 38 kg, which is rather light for someone 185 cm tall since the low end of healthy is 65 kg. And if the missing operator between the W and 3600 was a multiply, then the calculated weight would be 3 micrograms which is way too small for a human being, no matter how starved. However, the value calculated using the Mosteller formula would represent a BMI of 22 which is about average for a normal healthy adult.