Calculating The Maintenance Dose
The required maintenance dose may be calculated as:
Where:
-
MD is the maintenance dose rate Cp = desired peak concentration of drug CL = clearance of drug in body F = bioavailability
For an intravenously administered drug, the bioavailability F will equal 1, since the drug is directly introduced to the bloodstream. If the patient requires an oral dose, bioavailability will be less than 1 (depending upon absorption, first pass metabolism etc.), requiring a larger loading dose.
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