Dosage Question

A child is receiving 175 mg of a certain medication and the minimal and maximal dilution range is 5 to 75 mg/ml. What is the minimum and maximum volume of fluid for safe dilution?

How do you attempt to solve this question? I know I am missing something here.

This is a very strange question. But you would use a theoretical concentration and equate it to the desired dose. So if your concentration is 5mg/1ml, how many ml's do you need to get 175 mg? I would set it up as a ratio problem; 5/1 = 175/x, and solve for x. (175x1)/5.

For the max it would 75/1 = 175/x. (175x1)/75.

Hope this makes sense.

Not really but thanks for trying!!

What is up with all these weird math questions?! I'm lucky they don't throw stuff like this at us in my program.

Usually they'll give you a minimum & maximum dose...for example. Tylenol's min & max dose is like 250 mg to 4000mg. Then you would find out what the supply is (ex. 250mg/5ml) - then you would know what the min & max ml are (ex. 5ml to 80ml). These are just examples of mg & ml.

Is that the actual question you're being given?

If the patient is being given 175mg. Min. concentration would be 5mg/ml & max would be 75mg/ml.

175mg x 1ml / 5mg (dimensional analysis) would give you 35ml (maximum)

175mg x 1ml / 75mg would give you 2.3 ml (minimum)

I think that's what they're asking......doesn't make a whole lot of sense though.

Good luck!!

You need to know the childs weight in order to calculate the min and max dosage.