A patient is prescribed an alprostadil infusion at a dose of 50
MILLIGRAMS per kilogram Per minute. At what rate will the infusion be
set if the patient weighs 60 kilogramS and the infusion solution is
500 MICROGRAMS IN 50 MLS

Hi aquarius21-ga! The key to this problem is the conversion of
different units of measure, notably milligrams and micrograms.
Remember that 1 mg = 1000 mcg (See
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/common.htm for common metric units
and prefixes). Make sure to “cancel out” units until you are left with
the desired combination (in this case, milliliters per minute, or
ml/min).

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First determine how many milligrams of alprostadil will be given over
a one minute period. To do this we must take our minute rate and
multiply it by our patient weight.

(50 mg/kg/min) x (60 kg) = 3000 mg/min

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Next we need to convert the concentration of infusion solution from
micrograms (mcg) per milliliter to mg/ml.

(500 mcg/50 ml) x (1 mg/1000 mcg) = .01 mg/ml

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Now we need to determine what our rate will be in ml/min. To do this
we calculate the following:

(3000 mg/min) x (1 ml/.01 mg) = 300,000 ml/min OR 300 L/min

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 
So our infusion rate is 300 L (liters) per minute. This seems like an
extremely enormous rate, but this is how the problem works out.

Hope this helps. Let me know if I can clarify further. Happy
calculating!

Boquinha-ga

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Search Strategy

Metric + system
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=metric+system

thankyou for your time with this question. I too, had the same answer
as you and could not believe someone would set such a question as no
one in their right mind would deliver or be able to deliver that
amount of fluid to a patient. I have contacted the person who designed
the question and sent them back to the drawing board. I would be hung
drawn and quartered if I presented any of my peers with such a
question. Also amounts were wrong and the hospital where I work has
never used alprostadil in the time I have been there...not for adults
anyway

Calculation is well done but use 
of mc to express micro or 1e-6 is
not conforming to SI rules and is confusing.
If one cannot use greek leter (mi),
it is better to spell out (micro).
Sometime people use u, which not
official prefix either (it just looks like mi)
but is less confusing since u is not used as
SI prefix elsewhere.

Thank you hedgie. I was going by the abbreviation rules at the
hospital here and hadn't thought to use "ug" as an acceptable
abbreviation. Thank you for the reminder.

Thank you so much for the 5-star rating! I'm glad I could help. I'm
also glad to hear that you, too, thought this question was a little
bit off. I was wondering who'd write such a question. Good to know
that you're on top of it! Thank you again!

Boquinha