In: Nursing
This patient is receiving a medication for treatment of cardiac arrhythmia. An IV loading dose results in a peak serum concentration of 6.0 μg/mL. The therapeutic range for this medication is 4-8 μg/mL, and its half-life is 4 hours.
Four hours after the initial loading dose, another equivalent dose was given as a bolus. This resulted in a peak serum concentration of 7.5 μg/mL.
Questions:
1. Does the serum concentration after the second dose seem appropriate? If not, what would be the predicted serum concentration at this time?
2. What factors would influence the rate of elimination of this drug?
Answer 1:
No, the serum concentration after the second dose seems inappropriate because the half life is about 4 hours and after 4 hours the quantity reduced from 6 μg/mL to 3 μg/mL and again if 6 μg/mL is again added after 4 hour of initial dose then the predicted serum concentration should be near about 8.7-9 μg/mL.
Answer 2:
The rate of elimination of this drug is affected by:
a) N-acetyl transferase conjugate with procainamide and help in renal excretion.
b) plasma concentration of procainamide and NAPA.
c) plasma concentration of cimetidine.