Question

A patient is scheduled to receive melphalan 140 mg/m2. The patient's measurements are as follows: height 173 cm and weight 85 kg. Using the Mosteller formula, what is the dose to be administered?

Answer 1

The student's question involves using the Mosteller formula to calculate the body surface area and then determining the melphalan dose for the patient.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student's question relates to calculating a medication dose using the Mosteller formula, which is a method used to calculate body surface area (BSA) in square meters based on a patient's height and weight. Once the BSA is calculated, it is used to determine the appropriate medication dose, in this case melphalan, per square meter of body surface area.

To calculate the dose of melphalan to be administered using the Mosteller formula with the patient's given height (173 cm) and weight (85 kg), we follow these steps:

1. Calculate the BSA using the Mosteller formula: BSA (m2) = √[(height (cm) × weight (kg)) / 3600].
2. Apply the patient's BSA to the prescribed dose of the medication: melphalan dose (mg) = 140 mg/m2 × BSA.

First, we calculate the BSA:

BSA (m2) = √[(173 cm × 85 kg) / 3600] = 2.02 m2 (rounded to two decimal places).

Next, we calculate the dose of melphalan:

melphalan dose (mg) = 140 mg/m2 × 2.02 m2 = 282.8 mg

The patient should be administered 282.8 mg of melphalan, rounded to the nearest whole number if needed based on clinical practice and available dosing forms.